


The Invasion (will not be televised)

by Norickayer



Series: Ten Lives We Never Lived (2014 Trope Challenge fics) [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, In which Loki is a brain slug in kid!Loki's head, Mentions of self-harm, Sharing a Body, brain-snatching aliens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norickayer/pseuds/Norickayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world without superheroes, six teenagers stumble upon a dying alien who gives them the power to shape-shift. America, Eli, Kate, Tommy, Serrure, Billy, and Teddy are the only people who can stand against the alien invasion- because they’re the only ones who know about it.</p><p>When one of them confesses to being a member of the invasion force, well-  That’s just the beginning of the story.</p><p>(New summary- same story)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Infestation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Avamorphs](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/83297) by suzukiblu. 



> For Young Avengers fans who aren't familiar with Journey Into Mystery, Serrure was the name that kid Loki went by before Thor found him.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs learn that one of their closest friends isn't who they thought he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't quite a Young-Avengers-in-the-Animorphs-World AU, as some details (Skrulls and Kree instead of Andelites, etc) of the setting are from Marvel. Skrulls don't have a two-hour limit in morph (or else Teddy couldn't have been raised human), but the humans with morphing ability do.

“I’m sorry!” pleads the slug wrapped around Serrure’s brain. “I was ordered into this host; it wasn’t my decision!”

“It is now,” America replies, glaring dispassionately down at her friend’s body lying huddled in the dirt.

 ~~Serrure~~ Loki 645 inhales sharply. Ze couldn’t have mistaken her meaning: _Get out of Serrure’s head._

Serrure’s eyes glance to each of the other Animorphs, but of course no one will step in. No one will step forward to defend the creature that’s been controlling their teammate’s body.

No one says it, but everyone is thinking the same thing:

 _Get out or we’ll make you_.

The yeerk lifts up Serrure’s hands and brings them to his left ear. With a wet slurping sound, and a quiet _pop_ , a small greyish slug falls out of Serrure’s ear and into his hands.

He immediately starts to cry.

-

My name is Billy. I can’t tell you my last name, or where I go to school. I can’t even tell you where I live. If I do, the yeerks will find us, and then there will be no one protecting Earth from the invasion.

I know it sounds incredible, but there are aliens among us. You’ve probably seen one, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. The Skrulls are shape-shifters, and can look like anything they want. The pink Kree are hardly distinguishable from humans at all. But _they_ aren’t the dangerous ones. The aliens you really have to look out for are the yeerks.

Yeerks are parasitic slugs in their natural form. A hundred years ago they lived in shallow pools on their home planet. Then a Kree accidentally gave them space travel and the whole Universe is still regretting it. They’ve been invading planets ever since. A yeerk crawls into your head through your ear and wraps itself around your brain. Once it’s there, you can sense everything that happens to you, but you can’t stop it, because the yeerk is in control. It will walk your body to school or to work. It will eat your breakfast for you and talk to your family. The worst part? It has access to all of your thoughts and memories, so it can impersonate you perfectly. No one will ever notice a difference.

Anyone could be controlled by a yeerk: your best friend, your boss, even _you_.

And that’s why I can’t tell you who I am. It’s too risky. Anyone could be a yeerk.

Even one of us.

We call ourselves the Animorphs. We’re Earth’s last hope against the invasion. I know we don’t look like much, a handful of mismatched teenagers against bodysnatching aliens, but there’s more to us than meets the eye.

Eight months ago, we were just six normal teenagers walking home from school. We took a shortcut through a condemned building that night, and our lives changed forever.

We found a dying alien: a Skrull princess. She told us about the yeerk invasion, and before she died she gave us a way to fight back. With Skrull morphing technology, we can turn into any animal we touch. We can be as small as an ant, or as large as a hippo. We can be fast as a cheetah or as observant as an owl.

We may not have magic or super-strength, but for lack of better word

we’re superheroes.

-

We’ve been keeping the yeerk in a jar. It’s maybe three inches long, and flat like a fluke. It doesn’t have eyes or ears, so I’m not worried that it will know I’m there as I watch it swim idly in circles.

I wonder if it knows what we’re going to do to it. Actually, _I_ wonder what we’ll decide to do with it. To survive, yeerks need a nutrient that isn’t native to the Earth. Every three days they have to leave their hosts to absorb Kandrona radiation in one of their hidden yeerk pools.

Depending on how long it’s been since it visited the pool, we may not have to do anything. It may just starve in that jar, unseeing and unaware.

The yeerk’s name is Loki 645, according to Serrure. The real Serrure, that is, not the one we’ve been working with for the past eight months. The poor kid cried his eyes out as soon as he was free. Tears leaking down his cheeks, he still tried to tell us his story, to warn us about the yeerk threat and what he’d seen at the yeerk pool.

Some hosts fall to the ground when they’re freed. They aren’t used to being in control of their body anymore and have to get used to moving their mouth and supporting their own weight again. Serrure spoke as clearly as was possible through sobs, and had no trouble standing.

“Loki 645 wasn’t in control the whole time,” Serrure told us. “Ze isn’t very good at pretending to be 14. Ze had me go to school on my own, but there was always the threat that it would take control if I stepped out of line, or tried to tell someone.”

 He’s still a bit shaken, but he’s calmed down since last night, when we first freed him from his yeerk.

Talking to Serrure now is just unsettling. The way he acts is familiar, but not exactly the same as I’m used to. Gestures and facial expressions I thought were integral to his personality are now completely absent. Was that Loki 645? How much of our teammate was made up?

Serrure’s been a yeerk host for so long, I’m not sure I even remember how he acted before he was infested.

How did we not notice? How did we not know our teammate was a yeerk?

-

“This is a rescue mission,” Kate announces to the group. We’re all hanging around this storage space that her dad technically owns. It’s only about the size of a classroom, but we still call it the Warehouse.

My twin brother Tommy has been lying flat on his back on a bench, but he almost jumps up at Kate’s words.

“Rescue mission?” he asks. His best friend David is a yeerk host. Ever since Tommy found out, he’s been waiting for a chance to rescue him. There haven’t been many opportunities.

Eli frowns at Tommy and shakes his head slightly. Tommy ignores him, and continues to stare at Kate.

“The yeerks are going to notice when Serrure doesn’t show up to the yeerk pool on schedule,” Kate continues. “They’ll want to know why.”

“They’ll re-infect him if they find him,” Eli says grimly

“So, what?” Tommy asks, “We keep hiding him in the Warehouse forever?”

That doesn’t seem realistic. Even Noh-Varr doesn’t live here 24/7, and although this area is pretty low-traffic, someone is bound to notice if the Warehouse is constantly occupied by a teenager.

“Maybe they won’t notice?” Tommy says hopefully. “I mean, what did they want with scrappy little Serrure, anyway?”

“Oh shit,” America realizes. “Don.”

My stomach drops, and we all turn to look at each other in horror. Don is a med student, and Serrure’s half-brother. Serrure adores Don, wants to be just like him.

The thing is, Serrure is just a kid, barely 14. Other than the morphing power, there’s no reason for the yeerks to bother with such an inconsequential host.

Except that their dad is a Senator. And if Serrure’s off the table…

“We can’t just kidnap a college student,” Teddy says, “can we?”

“Where would be put him?” I wonder aloud.

No one answers. We all trade glances. It has never been more obvious how ill-prepared we all are to thwart an alien invasion. We haven’t even graduated high school. We’ve been lucky and careful, but we don’t really know what we’re doing.

“If we can’t remove Don, we can stop the yeerks from realizing Serrure’s free,” Noh-Varr suggests. Noh-Varr is fairly new to the team, and to Earth. He’s a Kree, probably one of the last free Kree in the sector. They blew up their own planet to keep it out of yeerk hands, but most of the survivors are yeerk hosts regardless.

“We’re not sending Serrure back into the yeerk pool,” America says firmly, leaving no room for argument.

Without meaning to, I glance back at Serrure, sleeping fitfully on a makeshift bed. I agree with America. I don’t even want to send Serrure home to his jerk-ass dad, let alone sending him, alone, into an alien base.

“Maybe Serrure doesn’t have to go.”

I whip my head around, because that was Serrure’s voice!

And there he is, 14 years old and looking like trouble, his lips pulled into a knowing smirk.

The clothes are wrong: over-large and sagging around his body.

“Teddy?” I ask. He’s the only one of us who can morph into human form. He says it takes practice, and he’s certainly had enough, growing up with his shapeshifting powers. It’s easy to forget that Teddy is really a Skrull, since he was raised as a human for the past 15 years.

“They’re going to find out,” I tell them, my anxiety rising. Going into the yeerk pool? Sending Teddy, my boyfriend, into the den of body-snatching aliens?

I try to swallow around the lump in my throat.

“You can’t,” I try to tell him. I get half of the words out before my voice turns into a shriek. I snap my jaw shut.

“We won’t send him alone,” Noh-Varr reassures me, all military professionalism. His tone is somewhat less effective now that I’ve seen him flail in excitement over the new Nicki Minaj album.

Eli asks something, but the exact words are indistinguishable under the roar of thoughts rushing through my head. Noh-Varr’s answer somehow makes it through.

“Well, someone has to morph the yeerk.”

And isn’t that a disgusting thought? Shrinking down, losing limbs and hair and eyes and everything that makes us human. Becoming a parasite, a mind-controller.

“I’ll do it,” I rasp, because I can’t just let Teddy go without me.

“No, you won’t,” Eli says. He acts like he’s the leader, but we aren’t military. We don’t have a strict hierarchy. I glare at him and look to Kate, but she shakes her head too.

“Billy, you can barely breathe just thinking about this,” Kate says, not unkindly. “You don’t have to take every mission.”

There’s nothing more to say. I concentrate on evening out my breathing as my teammates continue to plan.

Eli will morph yeerk.

Teddy will morph into Serrure, and will enter the yeerk pool with Eli in his pocket. He’ll kneel at the edge of the pool and drop Eli in, making it look like the yeerk is coming from his ear. (“No one will be looking that closely,” Noh-Varr reassures them, “it’s not the incoming hosts they have to worry about.”) Kate and America will morph bugs and ride in on Teddy’s clothing.  Serrure assured them that Loki 645 hadn’t told zir superiors about the Animorphs (for whatever reason), but Kate and America will try to make sure their cover is safe. They’ll do some recon, and if they have an opportunity they’ll sabotage some equipment. Tommy and Noh-Varr will be hawks, playing lookout. After one and a half hours are up, Teddy will be forced to the end of the pier again to reclaim his yeerk. Eli will make sure to be there, or risk having to demorph in a pool full of parasites.

“Try to pick him up with slight-of-hand, but if your head is forced under, Eli may have to infest you to keep out other yeerks,” Noh-Varr warns. Eli and Teddy share uneasy glances, but it can’t be helped. They can’t let Serrure’s cover be blown, can’t be responsible for Don’s infestation.

My job is to stay and watch over Serrure.

All the fight has drained out of me, and I just nod and wave away my friends’ concerns as they prepare to leave.

“I’ll be fine,” I hear myself say. “Serrure’s safe with me.” I try to smile, but the effort is too great.

“We’ll be back soon,” Teddy whispers in my ear. He leans in for a kiss, and I move my head so that he hits cheek instead of lips. He looks surprised, but doesn’t push. He just squeezes my shoulder and turns to go, shifting into Serrure’s smaller form as he walks.

Teddy’s morphing is almost graceful. It starts from one hand and spreads outward, the color shifting first. Teddy’s ruddy complexion being replaced with Serrure’s olive skin. Black hair replaces blond. His facial features shrink and change: the jaw softens, the nose sharpens, eyes shift position just slightly in his skull. Then, all together, his body shrinks. Serrure is the shortest of the group, and Teddy is the tallest, along with Noh-Varr. Watching one turn into the other would be hilarious at any other time.

“Bye,” I breathe as the door to the Warehouse closes. I open up my backpack and dig out my 3DS. With Serrure asleep, I need something to distract me.

-

_Ten minutes into the mission; 110 to go._

_Tap tap tap_ goes my stylus on the card table.

 _Tap tap tap_ goes my foot on the floor.

Serrure is still asleep, or pretending to be.

-

_Twenty-five minutes into the mission; 95 to go._

I snap my fingers in front of Serrure’s face. He grimaces but doesn’t otherwise react.

I guess he really is asleep.

_-_

_Forty minutes into the mission; 80 to go._

My 3DS runs out of battery. Noh-Varr lives here in the Warehouse on and off, so there’s a stolen generator hidden under a crate. I could use it to charge my DS, but what if someone hears it and comes to investigate?

Anyway, as I look over at the crate housing the generator, I think to myself, that seems like a lot of work.

-

_One hour into the mission; one hour to go._

A thought strikes me: what if Serrure was a voluntary host? What if we can’t trust anything he says? What if the yeerk made plans Serrure doesn’t know about, or what if there are security measures in the yeerk pool Noh-Varr hasn’t heard of?

Dozens of contradictory possibilities fill my brain, but they all agree on one thing: What if it’s a trap? What if all of my friends are captured? What if it’s only me left?

Serrure slumbers on, and I reassure myself that the mission isn’t over yet.

My team will return, safe.

-

_75 minutes into the mission, 45 to go._

Serrure has been infested for longer than we’ve had morphing powers. I became friends with a yeerk. I played video games with a yeerk. Teddy argued with a yeerk over which pokemon generation is the best. A yeerk introduced Noh-Varr to pancakes and bacon. Kate taught a yeerk how to play gin rummy.  Tommy pushed a yeerk into the swimming pool this past summer. A yeerk habitually tags after America, teasing her like an unwanted little brother.

A yeerk looked up at Teddy in awe and declared that he was ‘an improbably dashing prince’.

My eyes are drawn to the mason jar holding the yeerk. Loki 645 swims on, unaware.

-

 _90 minutes into the mission, 30 to go_.

What if Don is already infested? What if the team has already lost? What if Teddy was found out, and he’s sitting in a cage with the other hosts, screaming for me _right now_?

What if Serrure never wakes up? What if the yeerks already know about the team? What if Serrure wasn’t the only one who has been infested?

What if Eli is being controlled by a yeerk, too? What if it’s Kate?

What if it’s Teddy, and our whole relationship has been an act?

I tap my fingers on the top of Loki’s jar and wonder,

‘ _What do the yeerks know? What have you told them?_ ’

-

 _115 minutes into the mission, 5 to go_.

 _Snap snap snap_ goes the rubber band on my wrist. Tiny jolts of pain run through my arm at each _snap_ , but it’s not enough to distract from my racing thoughts.

The team is almost back, I remind myself. Don’t do anything stupid.

They’ll be back soon.

-

 _125 minutes into the mission, 5 minutes overdue_.

I try to wake Serrure again, but he’s still out cold.

 _Snap snap snap_ goes the rubber band, but it isn’t enough anymore.

I try to remember the list of substitutes that Teddy gave me. I can imagine exactly what it looks like, taped to the wall beside my desk at home. “Alternatives to Self-Harm” it says in big blue letters. Underneath is a list. 1: rubber bands. 2: Ice. 3… _what was 3?_

-

_137 minutes into the mission, 17 minutes overdue._

They could be dead they could be captured they could be infested

I need to calm down. I need to breathe naturally, but I can’t. I suck in air desperately instead.

If I was a normal kid I could just call Teddy, or my mom. But I can’t because Teddy is on a mission and my mom can’t know about yeerks so instead I’m shaking Serrure’s shoulder because I _can’t be alone right now._

-

 _145 minutes into the mission, 25 minutes overdue_.

I can’t

be alone

right now

The care I take in unscrewing the lid of the yeerk’s jar belies a calmness I don’t feel. My thoughts are racing and my breath is close behind.

Serrure slumbers on, unaware of the mistake I’m about to make.

I slip a hand into the jar. The water sloshes out and onto the floor. I wrap my fingers around the yeerk, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s slimy and sleek and doesn’t want to be held, but I grab it firmly.

Handing someone else control seems wonderful now, but I know I won’t feel that way later.

The team is 25 minutes overdue.

They’re dead or captured or worse.

There’s nothing to risk now.

I bring the yeerk up to my ear.

-

Loki 645 tentatively reaches out and connects to the host’s senses. Ze blinks the host’s eyes. Ze glances around the room. _‘We have eyes_ ,’ ze notes.

The clarity and wavelengths of light visible tells Loki 645 that the host is human, without even connecting to surface thoughts. The room is familiar: the Warehouse.

Serrure is sleeping in the corner.

But- if not Serrure- who is the host?

Loki 645 reaches further, and brushes the host’s thoughts.

 _Fear regret hopelessness_ come and go in a flash, leaving only a cloying, heavy emptiness behind.

Loki 645 doesn’t understand what’s happened, why ze is here and not dead or in the jar. Ze touches the host’s recent memories-

Billy flinches back, lashes out. Loki 645 is not fully integrated into ~~the host’s~~ Billy’s mind, so the gesture works. Billy’s memories are cut off.

Loki saw something, though. Ze saw enough.

-

When the team returns half an hour later, triumphant  and covered in yeerk pool fluids, they find Serrure still sleeping off Noh-Varr’s Kree sedatives, the yeerk’s jar empty, and Billy sitting on the floor in the middle of the room apparently playing tic-tac-toe.

“What’d you do to the slug?” Tommy asks casually, ringing out his skintight morphing shirt. A couple teaspoons of sour liquid form a puddle on the floor around him.

Billy points to his own head and smiles in an unfamiliar way.

“Billy decided he needed a chaperone,” Loki 645 says with Billy’s voice. “And FYI, tic-tack-toe doesn’t really work when you share brainspace.”

-

I’m stupid and weak and I could’ve gotten all of us killed. If Loki 645 had fully integrated into my brain, if ze had taken control, ze could have made me kill Serrure, or betray my team. Ze could have had me lead my own parents right into the yeerk pool, and I wouldn’t have had any way to stop it.

I’m a superhero. I’m the last hope for humanity. I should be brave and strong but I’m scared all the time. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m just so tired I guess it felt like it would be worth it to have someone else in control for once.

Loki isn’t in control, though. We’re not even really fighting for it. If I consciously decide to move or speak, I can do it, but so can Loki. If I’m not thinking about keeping my body still, ze can make us sit up or walk over to the door.

It’s weird. Scary.

But… it’s not _bad_.

“Get the fuck out of Billy, you disgusting piece of shit,” Tommy hisses, pushing ~~our~~ my shoulder against the packing crate that hides Noh-Varr’s generator.

Loki 645 blinks ~~our~~ ~~my~~ (fuck it) our eyes innocently. I didn’t even know I could do that.

I can’t read the yeerk’s mind or anything, but we’re some level of enmeshed, with zir entire body wrapped around my brain like this. I can feel loose ideas and feelings at the periphery of Loki 645’s presence, as if there’s some amount of emotional bleed-through going on.

There’s sharp, cold fear there, and dense, sticky guilt. But there’s also an undercurrent of excitement, and a small, carefully protected kernel of hope.

I never really thought about yeerks feeling those things before. I guess I assumed yeerks were all about domination and hatred.

Loki 645 is mostly petty annoyance and sarcasm, so far. Even though Loki 645 is an alien, it’s like talking to Tommy or Kate more than Noh-Varr.

“Maybe if you asked us nicely,” my voice purrs. I know we’re saying it only because I can feel my lips moving. The way Loki 645 talks is entirely unlike me, and not identical to Serrure, either.

I haven’t really thought about yeerks having personalities, either.

“How did it even get out of its jar?” Teddy asks the group in general, nudging the open container of liquid with his foot.

“Billy can’t have don’t it himself, right?” America says, furrowing her brows in doubt. She crosses her arms and leans her weight onto her left side, as she does when she’s uncomfortable.

“He’s smarter than that,” Eli replies, and I can no longer tell whose guilt is more pronounced: the yeerk’s or my own.

“Yeah, no one would _want_ a slug in their brain,” Tommy agrees. His way of defending me is to make stupid backhanded jokes at my expense, and this is no different. Tommy doesn’t really _do_ feelings, but I’ve seen him rip out the throat of a yeerk-controlled human before, and I know he wouldn’t be this gentle with any other host.

Loki 645 and I are silent.

Surprisingly, it’s Noh-Varr who comes to the rescue.

“There _are_ voluntary yeerk hosts,” he reminds us. The team is silent, probably remembering their recent trip to the yeerk pool. I’ve been down there only once, on the first mission we took as a team all those months ago. The pool complex is a vast underground cavern that spans an entire city block. In the center is the actual pool, a deep tank inset in the concrete floor, full of murky greenish water and thousands of tiny slimy slugs. One wall is lined with metal cages that house the human hosts while the yeerks feed. They shake the bars, scream and cry and pray and even sing, sometimes, so loud you can barely hear anything else.

Further out, there are the more solid cells for the alien hosts, Kree and Skrull and Hork-Bajir, who are stronger and more dangerous than humans, and need stronger bonds and more guards to prevent them from escaping.

I only caught glimpses of the voluntary host lounge.

There are no bars, no chains, no screams there. A single Kree stands guard, but there’s little need; the human hosts who wait there wouldn’t try to escape. They want to be there, for whatever reason. They have a couch and a shitty TV and I think I saw two teenagers playing X-Box.

I wonder if Call of Duty can drown out the screams.

My teammates likely saw the same things today. The memory must be even more fresh in their minds.

I glance between my teammates and find an extra head.

There’s a short blonde girl standing behind Eli, mostly hidden from my view. She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, but she’s still rubbing her hands along her arms as if she’s cold.

Loki 645 has noticed her, too.

‘ _That’s another host from the school_ ,’ ze tells me, speaking only in my mind. _‘Her yeerk is Doom 362_.’

“You saved someone?” I say in amazement. We all went in that first time to spark a jailbreak. We barely made it out in one piece.

Eli steps closer to the girl, as if to protect her from us.

‘ _What’s her name_?’ I ask Loki 645.

Ze is silent. I reach out, but feel only the existing mix of fear/guilt/excitement/hope. Then, something else floats to the surface: trepidation.

‘ _I don’t know_ ,’ ze admits. ‘ _It didn’t seem important at the time_.’

My team stares at us. They look as tired as I am. They look young and weary and unprepared for the responsibilities a dying Skrull princess foisted on us. Kate’s hair is a rat’s nest, Teddy’s shirt is covered in slime, Eli looks like he went three rounds with the Hulk, and Tommy looks like a drowned raccoon.

I look past them all at the little blonde girl who might be the only person less prepared for this than we are.

“I’m Billy,” I tell her. “and Loki 645,” my yeerk adds.

“Cassie,” she says. I expected her voice to be timid or raspy from disuse, but it’s not. It’s clear and strong, like iron molded by a blacksmith’s hammer. She steps forward, passing Eli to look me in the eyes, and I recognize her.

She’s in Serrure’s class. Her step-dad is the cop who comes to school periodically to teach us about ‘the dangers of drug addiction’. I wonder if he’s the reason she was infested, or if she just was in the wrong place at the right time.

I’m not sure what to do about my team or about ~~my~~ the yeerk, but I know what to do with angry, damaged teens. I pull my lips into a smile I don’t feel.

“Welcome to the Animorphs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, Loki subsumed kid Loki into zirself, thereby destroying kid Loki as a separate entity. Ze does come to regret this action, and tries to redeem zirself. But I thought, what if Loki had the option to give kid Loki his life back? What would Loki have left, without the child's body or identity or role? Wreaked by guilt and craving personal contact, which option would Loki choose?
> 
> If the plot hadn't demanded she not, America likely would have stomped on the yeerk as soon as it vacated Serrure's head. This group of Young Avengers are less averse to killing enemies than the canon, superhero version. They're alone, fighting a guerrilla war against body-snatching aliens. They can't afford to have much mercy.
> 
> Serrure is going to be pissed when he wakes up.


	2. Saving the world (is not always a choice)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There isn’t a manual for this, or a walkthrough, or even an article on Wikihow. We are utterly alone, utterly unprecedented, utterly confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for discussions of an abusive relationship: that is the context that Billy is using to try to understand what Loki 645 did to Serrure. It's not exactly right but it's as close as he's going to get without bringing aliens into it.
> 
> Warnings for teenagers making bad decisions, even with all of this information.

“Hey mom?” I ask, trying for casual but only reaching ‘nervous and squeaky’.

“Yes Billy?” she responds. She looks up for a moment from her pile of bills and books for a moment to show me she’s listening. Mom does things like that, and makes sure I know what they mean. It’s hokey and cheesy and little bit weird, but I do appreciate it.

“How do you- what do you do if one of your…friends…. Hurt another one?” It’s not quite right to call Loki 645 a friend, after what ze’s done, but what else do you call someone who played cards with you, ate in shitty diners, kept your secrets and fought an interstellar war by your side? How do I reconcile the things Loki has done for me with the things ze has done to Serrure?

I mean, that’s why I’m coming to mom. It’s not like she always has all the answers, but she’s a psychologist, and she tends to have good advice for stuff like this. She’s upfront about it when she doesn’t know, too.

Mom puts down her reading glasses and gives me her full attention. “Hurt how?” she asks sternly, probably thinking Kate’s hit Tommy with an arrow again.

I scramble to translate ‘yeerk infestation’ into normal human terms. How to get across what Loki did? How ze took control of Serrure’s life and left him living in fear even when he wasn’t a passive observer of his own life?

“Like… an abusive relationship,” I explain, having an epiphany. Maybe I don’t have to ask mom after all. There’s got to be books and articles and Youtube videos about this, right?

“That’s a serious matter,” my mom says, but it isn’t a reprimand or a brush-off; it’s a sign she’s taking this seriously. “As a friend, you need to offer the victim help: a safer place, privacy, resources. But you can’t force them to leave. If you need to give someone my number-“ I make a face, and she stops there.

“What about the… other person?” I ask, trying to look unaffected. What do I do about Loki 645?

“You can’t help the abuser and support the victim at the same time. Not even professional therapists can do that. I know they’re your friend, but what they’ve done is wrong.”

“It’s not that, Mom,” I say, wincing. Why did I think she could leave this alone. “It’s just- It’s just a TV show. Teddy and I were watching Degrassi, and we were arguing about what the characters should do.”

Mom gives me a look like she’s still suspicious, but doesn’t call me out on the lie.

“So you just drop the… abuser…. to protect the victim?”

“In the best case scenario, someone else will pick up the slack to help rehabilitate the abuser, but yes. It’s terribly important for the victim’s friends to stand by them and not ‘refuse to take sides’ or side with the abuser.”

“What if you can’t cut ties?” I wonder. It’s really either work together with Loki 645 or let zir die. There is no other option. Now that I’ve worked with zir, now that I know that ze’s a person (a sarcastic, petty, guilty person), can I let zir die of slow starvation?

“If Tommy did something, you can tell me,” mom urges. I roll my eyes. My mom- my foster mom, technically- doesn’t really approve of my twin brother. She tries to hide it, because she knows we’re close and she respects our familial relationship or whatever, but despite her best efforts she still tends to think the worst of him.

“Tommy didn’t do anything,” I reiterate. “It’s in Degrassi. But like, if a sibling abused your friend. What do you do? You can’t just cut them off. They’re family.” Loki 645 isn’t my family, but I can’t- is ze an Animorph? How much of that was real?

Mom is silent for a minute. “That’s a tough situation, Billy. If you were close with the victim it will feel like a betrayal no matter what you do. There are some things, though: never excuse the abuser’s behavior. Don’t invite the victim to a place you know the abuser will be. Actually address the abuse instead of letting it slide with your … sibling. If you can, get professional help.” Mom’s giving me this calculating look, so I figure it’s time to leave.

“Ok. Thanks mom, I’ll be sure to tell Teddy.” I smile, but Mom fixes me with that same look until I leave the room.

-

I try to translate Mom’s advice into aliens and brain-sharing.

Loki’s back in the jar of course, awaiting our final decision of what to do with zir. I have my brain to myself.

Is Loki 645 part of the team? Could we keep zir around without hurting Serrure even more? If we were partners again, Loki 645 would be around all the time, any time I was there. Would Serrure be forced to leave the Animorphs to get away from zir?

If we don’t keep Loki around, can I bear to let zir die?

If we find something else to do with zir, can I survive being alone in my head? Joining with the yeerk was stupid and dangerous and could have ruined everything, but if ze wasn’t there, would I have done something even worse in my desperation?

I think about the list written in blue ink on the side of my desk, and wonder.

There isn’t a manual for this, or a walkthrough, or even an article on Wikihow. We are utterly alone, utterly unprecedented, utterly confused.

-

The next day we gather in the Warehouse again, because somehow we’ve only gained more problems since trying to solve the last one.

Serrure and Cassie sit together on the ratty old couch Tommy picked up off the side of the road last month. They sit stiffly, and it looks unnatural, because Serrure is always lounging or perching,  never looking this uncomfortable.

“So what are we doing with the slug,” Eli announces to the room. It isn’t a question, it’s more of an introduction to the topic.

“Nothing?” Tommy suggests. “It’ll die by tomorrow anyway.” I wince at my brother’s coldness, and Serrure’s shoulders move as well, as if he agrees.

“What _can_ we do?” my boyfriend asks. “It’s not like we have a portable yeerk pool hanging around.”

I know what we could do. It’s not like it didn’t cross ~~our~~ ~~my~~ our mind while Loki 645 was in my head. That’s the thing with sharing headspace: you don’t have to ask or decide to speak to your… guest. All I did was think too loud about how we could save Loki, and ze sent back a plan. If I wanted to, I could save Loki. If I wanted to, I could morph Serrure every three days so he could ‘put in an appearance’ at the yeerk pool. With one plan, I could save both of the people I thought were my friend. All I have to do is become a yeerk host.

All I have to do is not be alone in my head.

“What are we doing about Serrure?” I ask. My voice comes out deep and gravely, and I cough a bit to clear my throat. My team turns toward me. They aren’t seeing the problem. “Are Teddy and Eli going to impersonate him every three days to the yeerk pool?”

“Billy’s right. We only bought him a bit of time,” Noh-Varr agrees.

“So what do we do,” Kate looks at each of us, but her eyes stop on Serrure. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” he says, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want Loki to die. I don’t want Don to be taken because of me.”

Eli and Kate trade looks, like they’re the adults in the room and we’re all children who don’t understand the severity of the situation. They may be older than the rest of us (bar Noh-Varr), but they’re only 17. They aren’t adults. They don’t have all the answers, either.

But this time, maybe I do.

“I have an idea.”

Maybe my breakdown last night killed any credibility I had, or maybe America sees something in my eyes, because she immediately shuts me down.

“ _No_ ,” she says. “The yeerk and you are staying three feet apart at all times, chico.”

I can’t let that be the end. I have to at least try. “Teddy can teach me to morph human,” I explain. “I can be Loki 645’s host. We can work _together_. We can pretend ze’s still in Serrure, so nothing has to change on his end. All he’ll have to do is pretend to be a host at school.” I look to Serrure, because no matter what the others say, this is his decision. It’s his life. Like my mom said, we have to stand behind him and let him have control of his life again.

“I don’t want zir back,” Serrure says, which is obvious. “I don’t want to talk to zir or look at zir or work with zir. I just want my life back. You can do whatever you want-“ his voice has been getting more and more bitter, and at some point he must have reached a point where it got too much, because he interrupts himself. “Don’t trust zir. Ze tried to be nice, sometimes. Ze tried to give me advice, or help out. But ze just didn’t get it that ze’s a yeerk. Ze was controlling my life against my will. You know how guilty ze feels, right?”

I nod. Serrure has told us a lot about the things he learned while he was a host, but before now he’s never talked about what it felt like. I had Loki 645 in my head for an hour and a half, but I never experienced the full control that Serrure went through. It’s so weird to think about it, but I realize I don’t really know this boy who forced a yeerk to empathize with him, the boy who inspired such guilt that Loki 645 voluntarily gave zirself up to us, the sworn enemies of the Yeerk Empire.

“Ze does feel guilty”, Serrure continues, “It overwhelmed zir and that’s why ze finally told you all what’s going on. But remember: ze felt guilty, but ze _still did it_.”

Serrure’s right, and I know I should listen to him, but the plan Loki gave me is still the best one we have.

“I know,” I tell him.

The team isn’t happy, but they recognize that we have few alternatives. It should bother me more that Loki 645 has so much influence on our decision, even while floating, unaware, in the jar.

“It comes out of your head for team meetings,” America demands. “One of us makes sure it’s out, and you give a report. The first time it takes control or does anything suspicious, it’s getting curb-stomped and we’ll figure out a new plan.”

“Don’t bring it in here, either. Drop it back in its jar before you see Serrure. Let it know that’s the deal: absolutely no contact with Serrure, no taking control. As far as we’re concerned, it’s on probation,” Eli continues, laying down the ground rules. No one suggests we get Loki 645 out to ask zir to agree to the terms. It’s pretty much this or death.

We’re just kids. We don’t have resources or allies or fallbacks. We can’t keep Loki alive without using a host, and I’m the only volunteer.

What am I thinking? Why am I doing this? Am I a terrible friend? Am I a failure as a person, to actually _want_ another being inside of my head?

The meeting doesn’t pause for my insecurities. The others have moved on to the other issues facing our team: the fate of Serrure and the girl they rescued last night.

“You’re both kids. Even more than the rest of us. You’re only freshmen and no one ever asked you if you wanted to be a part of this. Cassie, you can’t morph like we can, but if you want to help out we always need another set of eyes. Serrure,” Kate paused, catching the eye of her young teammate. “I don’t know how willing your participation was. If it was the yeerk who agreed to be an Animorph, that decision doesn’t bind you, ok? You can walk away from this if you want to-“

Eli snorts, clearly disagreeing, and I see his point. You don’t just walk away when the fate of your world hangs in the balance. You don’t walk away from the only other people who know what’s really going on. Still, it’s nice of Kate to offer.

“I’m in,” Cassie says immediately. “Whatever I can do. I want to help.” Her hands are clenched at her sides, digging into the couch cushions. There’s gotta be something she can help with. Noh-Varr can’t morph either, after all, and he’s incredibly useful.

“I’m out,” Serrure says, eyes downcast. “I’m not the person you thought I was, and I can’t pretend to be.”

“We don’t expect you to be the same person,” Teddy reassures him, but Serrure only shakes his head.

“I can’t be here. Not- not with you. Especially if the yeerk is going to be around, I just- I can’t. It’s better this way.”

“I won’t host zir, then!” I say desperately. I don’t want to be in that position again. I don’t want to be hopeless and alone, but Serrure must have felt that way for the last eight months, and he deserves better. He deserves not to be chased off the team.

“It’s my decision,” he says viciously. “No one’s going to take it from me.”

And with that, our team changed forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worry not: this is not the last we'll see of Serrure.


	3. The Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liberating Cassie has repercussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes are third person, when the focus is Serrure. All other scenes are first person, from Billy's POV, like in the Animorphs books.

Serrure drums his fingers against his thigh, the pressure and rhythm distracting him from the droning of his Government teacher.

Aliens are taking over the world, and they expect him to learn about the War of 1812.

Serrure hasn’t been bored in months, and he isn’t sure he can be happy about that. Before, Loki 645 would have distracted him with puns or a running commentary on his teacher’s wardrobe. Now, Serrure is finally alone in his head.

It’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful thing.

Serrure just didn’t expect to miss the company.

He turns his head to look over his shoulder. There’s Cassie’s seat, but of course it’s empty now. The principal announced her disappearance over the morning announcements, and encouraged anyone with any information about her whereabouts to come to the front office to speak to the police. Of course none of the eight people who _actually_ know where she is would ever fall for that.

Serrure remembers seeing the drawn, tear-streaked faces of her mother and step-father. He wonders whether the grief is real, or faked by yeerks dwelling inside their skulls. He wonders if Loki 645 would have grieved like that if Don disappeared. Ze had been starting to warm up to him by the end of-

Serrure shakes his head. The yeerk is gone, and good riddance.

“Serrure?” The teacher asks, pronouncing it in the guttural, American way rather than the French. “Did you have a question?”

“No m’am,” he answers. He lowers his head and pretends to take notes.

-

It’s my second full day with the yeerk riding along in my head, and everything’s been going fine. Even the trip to the yeerk pool went off without a hitch, although I think I can still hear the screams when I close my eyes.

I tell myself that spending all that time down there will help me to memorize their defenses, that one day it will lead to us freeing all of the hosts kept in cages.

I tell myself a lot of things.

Right now I’m telling myself that I should really have done my math homework, because it doesn’t look like Mrs. H will be buying any of my excuses this time. The tall, broad woman stands at the front of the classroom and tells us all to pass the homework forward. Even though I know I haven’t done it, I dig in my backpack for the crumpled, empty worksheet in the vain hope that some of it will be filled in.

I spread it onto my desk, trying to flatten out the wrinkles at the very least. All it has written on it is my name. I am so screwed.

But-

My right hand darts out and takes up a pencil. It flashes across the page, filling in numbers and symbols almost as fast as my eyes can follow.

“Billy!” Mrs. H says sternly. “If you have not finished the assignment, that is your own fault. Pass forward whatever you have completed.”

I force the hand to stop writing, and pass the paper to the girl who sits in front of me, who then adds it to her own and passes it on.

‘ _What were you doing_?’ I demand to the yeerk in my head.

‘ _Helping_ ,’ Loki 645 answers easily, with the mental equivalent of a shrug. ‘ _I only made it to problem 6, but-‘_

‘ _You can’t just do that without asking_.’ My heart hammers in my chest. Maybe this was a terrible idea. If Loki can’t even let go of control for two school days, how will we learn to work together for the foreseeable future?

‘ _Very well_ ,’ Loki 645 agrees, clearly only humoring me, ‘ _Next time I’ll let you fail._ ’

‘ _This is my body, Loki_ ,’ I remind zir. ‘ _You’re a passenger, not a copilot_.’

The wave of emotion I feel from Loki makes it clear ze doesn’t agree.

‘ _It’s incredibly hard to sit back and watch when your adrenal glands are acting up so much. If I wasn’t familiar with human school from S- from my last host, I’d think it was an elaborate series of tortures_.’

_‘You can help when I ask for it_ ,’ I repeat. ‘ _Nothing else_.’

‘ _Fine_.’

Maybe Loki would have said something else, some sarcastic comment or backhanded piece of advice, but then Mrs. H walks to the door and lets in a group of seniors- kids in Kate’s grade.

“Is it Homecoming season already?” Greg mutters next to me. I ignore him, because he’s an asshole.

“Class, your fellow students have taken time out of their own busy days to speak to you about the recent tragedy. I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

We all chorus “Yes, Mrs. H,” as unenthusiastically as we can get away with. Sometimes I suspect Mrs. H thinks we’re kindergarten students instead of high school sophomores.

‘ _You know, the yeerks approve of your school system,’_ Loki 645 mentions offhand _, ‘it does very well at preparing you all to take orders.’_

I’m not sure whether to laugh at that. It seems safer not to encourage Loki.

“Hi, I’m Lucy, and we represent the Sharing,” the leader of the seniors tells us, “We’re a recreational and social group on campus. I’m sure you know that we lost one of our own recently: Cassie went missing two days ago. She was a part of the Sharing, but she was also a member of the school, and we at the Sharing wanted to reach out and offer our support to her friends and classmates during this rough time. We’re offering grief counseling down at the rec center, but some people just need a distraction or a reason to keep active. Everyone is always welcome at the Sharing.”

Lucy’s fellow members echo her bright sunny smile, and I wonder if it looks creepy to anyone else. Maybe it’s just me, because I know that the Sharing is a front for yeerk activity, and that every ‘full’ member has a slug lurking behind their eyes-

‘ _Her yeerk is called Amora 529_.’

-just like I do, actually.

I look away from Lucy and feel a bit sick. Of course the Sharing will be taking advantage of Cassie’s ‘disappearance’. I bet they’re hoping to sniff out where she’s hiding, too.

‘ _It’s very likely_ ,’ Loki 645 agrees.

‘ _We have to tell the team_.’

-

That night, Segurre sits at the kitchen table, homework spread out in front of him.

He scrawls a few numbers down, then erased them again. He probably should have paid more attention in math class these last few months, but nothing really felt like it mattered, at the time. How do you bring yourself to care about polynomials when your life is being controlled by an alien? How do you learn when you’re scared all the time?

It doesn’t _matter_ , not really, not when the Earth might be under yeerk control by this time next year, but what if this is the thing that catches their attention? What if the math teacher is controlled by a yeerk? What if the principal notices Serrure’s math grade slipping and wonders why Loki 645 has allowed Serrure to fail? What if they find out he’s free?

Serrure puts the pencil down and takes a deep breath.

“Hey.”

Serrure looks up. Don stands in front of him, leaning against the table for balance. He’s smiling, and his blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail, which means he’s probably just come back from classes himself.

“What’s up?” his brother asks. “Anything I can do to help?”

Serrure shakes his head sadly, because while once he thought Don could do anything, he now knows better.

Don isn’t fooled, and carefully lowers himself down into a chair. Don’s left knee got crushed in a car accident years ago, and it will never have the mobility it once had. He uses a cane sometimes, but doesn’t bother with it when he’s at home.

Serrure has a thought.

“Actually…”

“Yeah, kid?” Don looks him straight in the eye, like he isn’t just a scrawny 14-year old, like he’s an equal, someone who matters.

“What do you do if you know something terrible is happening, and you’re not strong enough to stop it?” Serrure knows that even this might be too much to tell Don, but what else is he supposed to do? Who else can he go to who won’t want something from him?

Don leans back in his chair, giving Serrure’s question the thought it deserves.

“That’s a hard one. I guess… you accept that one person can’t change the world alone, and do as much as you can anyway. Maybe you can’t stop this terrible thing from happening, but maybe you don’t have to do it alone?” Don raises his eyebrows at his little brother, and Serrure knows it’s an opening to ask for Don’s help. He can’t know. He can’t be closer to this than he already is. Serrure is pretty sure that Don isn’t a yeerk host- Loki 645 would have been informed if there was another ally so close by. But if Don makes the wrong move or falls in with the wrong crowd, he could be infested any day.

“Thanks Don,” Serrure says instead, smiling up at his brother as if nothing’s wrong. As if hundreds of people aren’t living out his personal hell as they speak.

“Not a problem.”

-

I kept thinking about the Sharing and Cassie for the rest of the day. About how she’s stuck living with Noh-Varr now, about how we can’t even afford to get word to her parents that she’s safe. They’re probably already infested, now. (Was it even worth it?)

I don’t want to let this go. I don’t want to stand back and watch the yeerks take control of whatever is left of her life here.

_‘What else can we do?_ ’ Loki 645 asks curiously, but all I have are a bunch of disconnected ideas, not a solid plan. I send those thoughts to Loki anyway.

Ze sends back surprise and a quiet thoughtfulness.

_‘Got a better idea?_ ’ I ask zir.

‘ _No_ ,’ Loki 645 admits, ‘ _But I think I can supply some structure to yours._ ’

-

The seniors get out of school half an hour before we do, so I don’t manage to grab Kate and Eli before they go home for the day. Instead, I catch Teddy’s eye and pull him into the supply closet next to the nurse’s office right after the last bell rings.

“I want to sabotage the Sharing’s recruitment meeting tonight.”

“Why do I get the feeling you haven’t told the others?” Teddy asks.

“Probably because I haven’t.”

“Wonderful. Ok. At least let me grab America and Tommy before they go home-“

He ducks out into the hallway before I can tell him the rest of the plan, or suggest a better meeting place. Great. Because four teenagers hiding out in a closet isn’t suspicious or anything.

‘ _If we get caught, I have several excuses that sound much more believable than ‘secretly fighting a guerilla war against aliens’_ ,’ Loki 645 offers. I catch the gist of one of them floating around in my head, and I decide I don’t want to know the rest.

-

< _We’re in position, >_ America reports several hours later. Her voice is loud and clear in my head, despite her body being twenty feet away and currently the size and shape of a cockroach. In my nervousness I almost glance toward her hiding place, but Loki 645 grabs control for the split-second it takes to stop me.

< _Those brownies smell_ awesome,> my brother interjects. < _Hey Billy, snag one for me. Or- wait, would the yeerks poison the food? No one’s that evil, are they?_ > The technology that allows Tommy to speak in our minds while he’s in the body of an insect actually makes his speech _more_ intelligible than it usually is. I’m not sure it’s actually possible to slur words telepathically.

Beside me, Teddy continues his conversation without pause.

There are about twenty-five kids at the Sharing info meeting, besides me and Teddy. Most of them are from Cassie’s grade, but there are a few older kids scattered around, and also a few who I think are still  in middle school. I shiver at the thought of someone so young becoming infested.

Teddy puts his arm around my shoulders, disguising my disgust as cold.

“Thank you all so much for coming,” Lucy announces once the brownies are gone. “The Sharing is an open, supportive place where people from all walks of life can come together and live life to the fullest.” I wonder if the infomercial-ness is a yeerk thing or a cult thing. “There are no obligations here tonight, we just wanted to give you all an opportunity to see what we’re about here at the Sharing and allow you to decide whether we could be right for you.” She smiles, all teeth.

_‘That yeerk is terrible at motivational speeches_ ,’ Loki 645 complains. _‘I could do so much better than that_.’

I imagine what would have happened if Serrure had invited the team to the Sharing before we found out it was a yeerk front. Loki 645 could have lured us into an ambush at any time.

“Our volunteers are passing out slips of paper,” Lucy continues, undaunted. “It’s a little game to help you get to know each other. Each square has a hobby or a characteristic written in it. Go around the room and talk to each other to find someone who fits into each box!” She hands a stack of unevenly-cut yellow construction paper to a group of seniors in green shirts.

A brunette I vaguely recognize from last year’s Earth Science class smiles blandly at me and hands me a piece of paper and a cheap plastic pen- the kind you get at the dollar store in packs of 12.

I glance down at the words reflexively, despite the fact that no one will get the chance to finish the activity if everything goes as planned.

_‘Looking for the ‘symbiotic yeerk host’ square?_ ’ Loki 645 asks. _‘I think you’ll be disappointed_.’

_‘That would be incredibly honest of them, if there was_ ,’ I respond, my eyes skimming over ‘born outside the country’, ‘has an older sister’, ‘plays a sport’, ‘has green eyes’, ‘knows all the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody’, and ‘favorite color is yellow’.

“Who writes this shit?” Teddy whispers to me, apparently reading over his own paper.

< _Oooh, someone dropped a brownie_! > my brother’s voice announces in my head. < _Mine_! > I’m not sure whether that’s Tommy’s usual impulsiveness speaking, or if the cockroach’s instincts have gotten the better of him.

< _Don’t you fucking dare, Tommy. STAY IN POSITION UNTIL THEY SIGNAL US_! > America yells back via thought-speech.

Teddy and I share an uneasy glance, but we can’t respond telepathically while we aren’t in morph. Teddy tried to explain to me once why he can’t use thought-speech in human form, but to be honest we had just started dating and I was much more interested in staring at his mouth. Whoops.

‘ _How you guys managed to avoid detection for so long, I’ll never know_ ,’ Loki 645 sighs.

I ignore my yeerk’s running commentary and refocus my mind on the mission. We’re here to gauge how popular the Sharing is getting with the freshman class, how enthusiastic any of these kids are about joining. If they’re just here for free food, we won’t have to do much to dissuade them from coming back- America and Tommy running around the snack table as cockroaches will ensure that no one is tempted to come back to the Sharing for the free dessert.

On the other hand, if they’re actually buying the whole ‘unconditional acceptance, brotherhood of peoples’ shtick, even a couple bugs won’t keep them out of yeerk hands for long.

Teddy gives me one last squeeze on the arm, then wanders off to socialize. My gaze scans the crowded room, looking for someone who isn’t already engaged in conversation.

I wander around the perimeter, and eventually end up at the snack table where a short girl in a knit hat is talking to- Serrure.

Before I can sneak away (and how suspicious would that look, to the yeerk-controlled volunteers?), Serrure spots me.

He doesn’t say anything, but his expression freezes. I can’t read his face like I used to- when Loki 645 was in control, I got to know what every eyebrow twitch and every turn of the lip meant, but Serrure’s face is different now.

‘ _What do I do?_ ’ I ask Loki 645 frantically. Someone is going to notice this. Someone will notice that we aren’t even supposed to know each other but we’re freaking out and someone will question Serrure and figure out he doesn’t have a yeerk and then-

‘ _Fuck_ -‘ Loki curses, and takes control.

Our expression evens out into one of manufactured sympathy.

“Hi,” my voice says to my former teammate. “You’re Serrure, right? Were you a friend of Cassie’s?”

Loki 645 holds out my hand to Serrure, who considers it as one might consider a rotting fish.

“ _Are_ ,” the girl Serrure is with corrects. “She’s missing, not dead. We _are_ her friends.”

“Right, sorry,” Loki replies in chagrin, withdrawing our hand. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Molly.” The girl is frowning at us, and I wonder if she’s infested like Cassie and Serrure were.

‘ _Probably not_ ,’ Loki answers, unasked. ‘ _I don’t remember her, and if you hadn’t noticed, all of the Controllers are putting on their Friendly Faces today. This girl looks like she wants to shank you._ ’

‘ _Controllers_?’

‘ _Yeerks controlling their hosts: Controllers_ ,’ Loki clarifies.

‘ _Oh_.’

“Hey, so do you have any of these boxes, or…?” I ask awkwardly, brandishing the paper. Molly scoffs and rolls her eyes, but reached out for the paper. As soon as I hand it to her, she begins folding it into a paper airplane.

Well, that’s one person who isn’t impressed with the Sharing’s pitch.

-

Molly, Serrure and I manage to make a pretty efficient assembly line of paper airplanes, even with me and Serrure ignoring each other’s existence. Molly takes this in stride, and provides a running commentary on the best way to fold paper airplanes for various uses.

“-if you want it to fly a long way in a straight line, but if you want it to fly around the corner and hit someone, you can fold it like _this_ ,” Molly explains, taking another Sharing leaflet from the pile on the counter to demonstrate her technique.

I keep an ear open to the conversations happening around us, but it mostly has nothing to do with the Sharing itself. A couple of kids in the corner are talking about what Sean did to get detention last week, the girls next to us are trying to remember Cassie’s last name, and I think there’s a couple behind me who are making out, from the muffled noises I hear.

A hand settles on my shoulder, and I jump before Teddy’s voice reassures me as to the hand’s owner.

“A found a couple lonely freshmen, but most of these kids are here for the food, I think,” Teddy whispers into my ear.

I nod and smile at him as if he’s said something sweet.

“Yeah, me too.”

Teddy gives me a questioning look, so I take it as my cue.

“Do you think they have any cookies left?” I ask him, in what I hope sounds like a hopeful voice.

Serrure gives me an odd look and glances over the snack table, well picked-over by hungry students.

“Maybe you could ask one of the volunteers,” Teddy suggest helpfully, ignoring the obvious lack of food.

I turn and survey the room, making sure to note where the volunteers in neon t-shirts are. I lock eyes with one boy about my age and walk toward him. As I clear the snack table I swing my foot a little too wide and ‘accidentally’ kick the leg so that the whole table bounces a bit.

< _That’s our cue_! > Tommy announces joyously.

< _About damn time_ ,> America agrees.

 Cockroaches don’t have great hearing, but they feel vibrations just fine.

Molly, the girl with the paper airplanes, screams in disgust as two American Cockroaches scuttle across the snack table, climbing over empty foil trays in search of crumbs.

‘ _It is an intrinsically human reaction to gather and watch when someone screams,_ ’ Loki notes as a group of students crowd the table to see what it was that horrifies Molly so. A chorus of moans and squeals rises as one roach darts out of a bag of potato chips and into the box of plastic spoons.

One brave soul tries to make it through the crowd, brandishing a shoe, and I figure that we’d better arrange for the getaway before we find out if Tommy and America can survive as much as real roaches can.

“I’ll kill them!” Teddy yells into the crowd before lunging at the table, missing a roach by several inches. He’s just slamming his fists on the surface, but it looks and sounds very impressive, even if I’m sure he’s being careful not to actually hit anything.

One roach darts behind a bottle of Pepsi. Teddy places one hand flat on the table next to the bottle to steady himself while the other smashes down near the chips.

It’s simple slight of hand: direct attention with one hand, while the other-

A cockroach scurries from behind the soda bottle and into Teddy’s long sleeve. I am, I hope, the only person looking.

‘ _See, this is much better!’_ Loki 645 crows _, ‘subtlety, plausible deniability, I like this plan.’_

_‘This was your plan,’_ I remind zir.

_‘You don’t say._ ’

-

Kate and Eli are annoyed the next day when we fill them in on what they missed, but they agree that we need to be able to take opportunities as they come, not always wait for the whole group.

“You could have called,” Eli points out.

Teddy mimes picking up a phone. “Oh, hi Eli’s grandma. Can you put Eli on the phone? No, we just wanted his opinion of our plan to infiltrate an alien youth group meeting. He’s busy, you say? I’ll wait.”

“What we need is a code,” Tommy decides.

“This is going to be really stupid, I can already tell,” America groans.

My team is snarking at each other, Cassie’s parents are probably infested, and we’re no closer to actually freeing more hosts or sending the yeerk packing. Still, it’s not all bad. Serrure’s in the clear with the Sharing, the freshman class are already spreading horror stories about last night’s Sharing meeting, and we stopped another yeerk plan with zero casualties.

For a team of teenagers fighting against an alien invasion, I think we’re doing pretty well.


	4. The Yeerk Peace Movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serrure is found out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Including a couple more Runaways characters for a larger cast. (Did you catch Molly Hayes in last chapter?)

“How’d it go?”

“How’d what go?” Serrure asks, trying to angle his head so that he can see his brother’s face. Unfortunately, sitting upside-down on a couch is not a great position for visibility.

“Saving the world,” Don’s voice is amused and light-hearted. Serrure wonders how different his tone would be if he knew what was really going on.

“Pretty well,” he hedges, thinking it over. “You were right about getting help.”

Don steps into Serrure’s line of sight and pats his brother’s knee.

“When will you learn that I’m always right?”

-

“Serrure, right?”

When two upperclassmen block his way to third period, Serrure begins to suspect that he is in trouble. When he distantly recognizes Nathanial from the Sharing, his blood runs cold. His first instinct is to run, and his second is to find his team, but both reactions would only get him in more trouble, and drag the Animorphs down with him.

“Yeah, can I help you?” he asks instead, with a smile. “I’m about to be late to Chem, can we talk later?”

“Of course,” Nathanial’s yeerk replies, trying to smile but looking tense. It doesn’t reassure Serrure. “I have the second lunch slot, are you free then?”

“No, sorry,” Serrure fakes apology. “Mine is the first slot.” If he can stall them, he can warn the team, maybe morph something small and get away before anyone notices he’s gone?

“So do I!” Nathanial’s friend replies. She’s a tall blonde in Billy’s grade- Karolina something. “We’ll talk then.”

“So long, Serrure,” Nathanial bids him. Their eyes meet, and the Controller’s smile becomes a shade more genuine. He knows something.

“See you at lunch!” Karolina bids him.

Serrure walks slowly to Chemistry, and steps in the door several seconds after the late bell.

Is Karolina infested, too? Do they know Serrure is free of his yeerk?

-

It should be unsettling how quickly Loki 645 settled into my life. I can recognize that as a fact without feeling it.

Like this morning, mom made me breakfast before school. I knew something was definitely up, because usually I just grab cereal and watch stupid cartoons. Still, it’s not like I could’ve gone back to bed or avoided her, so I sat down anyway and ate the damn eggs.

She gave me this sad, understanding look and said “Billy, I know there isn’t an abuse plotline in Degrassi,” like she had found out some great secret and was sorry she had to confront me about it.

And I haven’t thought about that since last week, you know? I almost forgot about making that up. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say to convince her it was nothing.

Loki did, though.

Ze took control and twisted the stance of my body just a few degrees, until every action read ‘embarassed’ instead of ‘uneasy’. Ze made my face blush - I didn’t realize yeerks could do that, but I guess that’s how they’re so effective at pretending to be us.

Ze stammered out, “Ok, so… have you heard of fanfiction?” and with one sentence transformed an intervention into an embarrassing confession about internet habits.

I’m kind of scared at how relieved it made me. It was so easy to sit back and let Loki handle things. What if I start to do that with my whole life? What if Loki 645 takes over not because ze starts forcing zir way into my life, but because I let zir?

-

“Hey Serrure!” Karolina calls. She sets her tray down at his table and sits across from him. Serrure regrets that their table is empty, that no one is there to interrupt or suggest that Karolina sit somewhere else. Maybe if Serrure hadn’t sabotaged his friendship with Leah… but no, he did the right thing to send her away. Loki’s guilt didn’t come until several weeks into his infestation. There’s no telling what could have happened to Leah in that time.

“Hi,” Serrure answers. He has a lot of practice being civil and pretending everything is fine. “What’s up, Karolina?”

“You haven’t been as active in Sharing recruitment recently,” she says casually, not yet touching her lunch.

Serrure’s breath catches, but he remains outwardly calm. “I went to a recruitment event just the other night.”

Karolina smiles, a close-mouthed expression that reaches her eyes and makes them sparkle. “You spent the whole night talking to a twelve-year-old.”

“She’s a hard sell,” Serrure says seriously.

Karolina tosses her long hair over her shoulder, using the gesture as an excuse to glance around, as if to make sure they are not overheard.

The yeerks wouldn’t do much at school, right? They couldn’t kill him here. If they wanted to lure him into a trap, it wouldn’t be out in the open like this, right?

“You aren’t a Controller,” Karolina observes.

Serrure’s blood runs cold.

Too much time passes, and the yeerk behind Karolina’s eyes twists her lips once more into that knowing smile.

“We’re in public,” Serrure reminds her, desperate to stall for time.

“You’re a symbiote,” Karolina continues, undaunted. “Like me and Xavin 216.”

That… is not how the conversation was supposed to go. Was it?

“What?” Serrure breathes. His mind can’t grok what she’s saying. His heart is still hammering in his chest, and he got so keyed up waiting for her to accuse him of being an escapee that he’s not sure how to react to anything else.

“We’ve been watching you for months. You act different at school and at the Sharing, even when you’re interacting with new members. That’s how we knew Loki 645 isn’t in control during the day. Ze isn’t controlling you; you’re working together!” Karolina concludes triumphantly. She says those last three words a bit too loudly, but they’re relatively innocuous, so no one around them bats an eye.

Months. He was being watched by yeerks for _months_. Serrure was right to be afraid of discovery, people _were_ watching him, waiting for him to make a wrong move and- and-

He’s only been free for a week. It was Loki’s leniency, zir guilt they saw, not Serrure’s freedom.

They don’t know the truth. Serrure can still make it out of this.

“Months?” Serrure echoes.

“We weren’t sure what we were seeing,” Karolina (or her yeerk?) admits. “But now, with Cassie’s disappearance…” Karolina flips her hair again, checking the room for eavesdroppers. “You know where she is. You helped her escape.”

“What do you want?” Serrure asks. He doesn’t deny or confirm Karolina’s accusations. Loki 645 taught him a lot of things, among them this: When bluffing, the less info you give the other person, the more assumptions they’ll make. The more they’ll reveal to you.

“To help each other. We want you to join the Yeerk Peace Movement.”

-

“I don’t like this.”

“What, the secret invasion of the Earth by brain-snatching aliens?”

“ _No_ , Tommy-“ Eli spits back, “I mean, _yes_ , but I mean- Loki.”

“I don’t think any of us _like_ the yeerk,” America says, “But we decided, right? Ze helps Billy.”

“I don’t like it,’ Eli repeats. “A couple thousand of these slugs invade the city, and the one in our teammate’s head happens to be the one who grows a conscience? How likely is that? Why not Cassie’s yeerk? Or David’s? Or the yeerks in America’s moms or Principal Coulson or anyone else at all?”

“It does seem convenient,” Kate agrees.

“Suspicious is more like it.”

They’re making good points. It does seem far-fetched that this one yeerk should ‘see the light’ and renounce the species’ world-conquering ways just from meeting a human kid. It’s awfully convenient that it happens to be _this_ yeerk. But then again, how could it be a lie? If Loki 645 wasn’t on our side, wouldn’t we be all infested by now? Wouldn’t we at least be on the run, and down one teammate?

I lean back against Teddy and stay silent. I’m too close to the situation, every argument that runs through my head is tainted by the guilt I felt from Loki and the relief I get from zir presence in my mind. I can’t be objective about this-

But really, who among us can?

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

For one strange minute, I imagine that Loki 645 has walked into the room to hear us argue about zir sincerity. That’s the voice ze spoke with for so long, after all, that’s zir wry smile and self-effacing tone.

It can’t be Loki. Loki is in a jar hidden under my desk at home, as per our agreement with Serrure. His departure from the team didn’t change that.

So that means- this is Serrure. _Just_ Serrure.

Huh. I guess there’s more of him in Loki than I thought.

“Hey,” Cassie says. Her voice sounds excited, like her best friend just walked in the door, even though I don’t think she and Serrure were ever close at school. It makes sense though, the more I think about it. It’s not like any of us understand what they went through.

Not even me.

“You back?” Tommy asks. He takes a step toward Serrure, like he’s going to go in for a hug or something, but he stops himself almost immediately. Tommy’s not the hugging type. I guess he really must’ve missed him.

Serrure twists his mouth to one side and scrunches his face, like he’s thinking about something mildly distasteful. It’s a very _Serrure_ expression, and not _Loki_ at all. Eli and Noh-Varr finally relax.

“I was contacted by a couple of yeerks at the school. They say they’re part of an underground resistance. A Yeerk Peace Movement.”

Cassie’s face darkens, and the rest of us glance at each other in confusion. My stomach leaps. If there are others- If other yeerks can change, that means Loki could be telling the truth. Loki could really want to help us.

“So they’re like us, but within the Yeerk Empire?” Noh-Varr says, not so much asking as testing out the idea on his tongue.

Serrure shrugs. “I don’t think they’ve gone out on missions or sabotaged anything yet, but the intent’s there.”

“Well that’s awfully nice of them,” Tommy sneers, “What do they do, sit around telling each other how terrible those _other_ yeerks are?”

“Why did they know to come to you?” Eli wants to know. He has a good point. Of all the hosts at the school, they happen to find the one who wouldn’t rat them out to the yeerk high command? I can only imagine what Visser Three would do to traitors- he already treats his subordinates like cannon fodder.

“Loki 645 slipped up.” Serrure shrugs, and this time I do recognize his body language. It’s too-casual. He’s lying. Why? This is important, this kind of information leak is a danger to Serrure’s freedom, and by extension, all of ours. But he can’t be a mole, Loki 645 was in his head for months, ze’d have told me if-

And here I go, trusting the yeerk already.

“They don’t know about you guys,” Serrure reassures us. “As far as they know, the band of guerilla warriors are rebel Skrulls who crashed with Princess Anelle. They think I’m with Loki. That I’m like them-“ Serrure locks eyes with me, and I flinch for the hit I know is coming. “symbiotic.” It isn’t spat like venom or hissed like a curse, there’s no disgust in the word at all. Just a lack of any emotion at all. I know the feeling.

“No offense, Serrure,” Eli begins, “But you left. You’re not an Animorph anymore. So what do we care about a group of yeerks hiding behind their own guilt from their culpability in the invasion?”

“They have inside information, stuff Loki 645 can’t access. There’s rumors they’re trying to convert a Subvisser to the cause.”

“They’d know strategies, plans for expansion. We could attack before they can build new pools, and keep them contained to the area,” Noh-Varr realizes.

“All we have to do is work with brain-snatchers,” Kate says, contemplative.

“We already are.” America looks troubled. She always looks like that these days. I don’t think she likes the moral gray area we’ve set up camp in. She’d do better as a White Hat in a Hollywood movie, where aliens didn’t torture children and tear apart families.

Serrure’s eyes flash to me, and I try to shake my head. He doesn’t look convinced.

“Loki’s in the jar,” Teddy reassures him. “Like we talked about. No yeerks allowed in the Warehouse, right?” he smiles, and Serrure echoes it, hesitantly. Teddy is kind of perfect like that. I don’t think who isn’t dead inside can honestly dislike him.

“Does this mean you’re back?” Cassie asks. Her voice is quiet as she asks, but somehow it carries across the room, stifling all of the other mumbling and side-comments from the team.

Serrure gazes up at the ceiling, maybe thinking about the past few days, maybe avoiding our eyes. I know which it would be if he was Loki 645, but I’m not sure I know Serrure as well.

“There’s a war. I can’t hide from it, and I can’t pretend it isn’t happening. All I can do is the best I can.”

That’s our battle cry if we ever had one.

We’re not professionals. We’re not a military group, or superheroes. We aren’t even a real team half the time. We’re friends (barely).

With great power comes great responsibility, but they don’t match up well: we have just enough power to feel responsible, but not nearly enough to win.

We have to try. Some days, we don’t know what we’re doing, and we don’t know where to draw the line, but we’re the best change Earth has against the yeerks.

We’re surviving.

We’re the Animorphs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I got really excited about the idea of Xavin and Karolina as a symbiotic yeerk/human relationship. They're in _love_. Everyone else thinks this is weird, including the other Yeerk Peace Movement members.
> 
> Vision 002 and Nate have a mutual dislike, but work together anyway (because VISION STOLE HIS LIFE, GET IT???). Nate is really angry and bitter that they couldn't save Cassie from being infested, and now that she's 'missing' he feels even more helpless.


	5. The Kandrona Mission, Part One: Serrure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs make a move with information gathered by the Yeerk Peace Movement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is told by Serrure rather than Billy. Hope you enjoy the POV switch, because this will be the trend for the next several chapters. You can look forward to Tommy and Eli narrating next.
> 
> Warnings: mention of eugenics. Mention of the Holocaust. Ableist attitudes of the Kree.
> 
> Inspired by Animorphs _The Capture_ and _The Stranger_

“I’m in,” I announce as I set my lunch down on the table.

Karolina/Xavin 216 jumps, and drops their spoonful of peas back onto their lunch tray. “Serrure!”

“Great,” Nathanial/Vision 002 says with a smile. “We’re up to a dozen, now.”

“Do you always talk about clandestine rebellion movements in the lunch room, or am I just special?” I ask, poking at my slice of greasy public school pizza.

“It’s not like anyone’s listening,” Karolina/Xavin 216 answers, and then her diction changes completely as she continues, “the dull roar of the hum- _students_ talking acts as white noise; it’s actually very difficult to overhear us like this.”

“So what do you do, anyway? Do we just sit around and feel bad for being yeerks, or-?”

“We’re biding our time! We have to develop a sufficient strike team before we can make any strategic moves-“ Karolina/Xavin 216 cuts their outburst off mid-sentence, and looks a bit embarrassed about it. I hope it’s not as easy to differentiate between yeerk and human in Karolina’s everyday life.

Or, no. Wait. Being able to tell yeerk from human is _good_. Ugh, subterfuge is hard.

“The question is: what can you do for the Movement?” Nate/Vision 002 asks. Unlike Karolina/Xavin, they’re staring directly at me, not pretending to eat lunch or check out cute classmates.

“I didn’t rescue Cassie alone.” I let the words hang there in the air, let them accumulate assumptions and questions.

“You’re in contact with the Skrull bandits?” Nate/Vision exclaims.

I smile.

“So the question is, what can the Yeerk Peace Movement do for us?”

-

“What do the yeerks want with a hospital?” Cassie wonders aloud.

“X-ray machines would out them in a minute,” Teddy notes. He leans his weight against Billy’s shoulder for a moment. They do that a lot: casual touching. Every time we have a meeting, they sit pressed against each other on the couch, or else Teddy stand behind Billy’s seat and rests his hands on Billy’s shoulders. I guess they’re never really alone anymore, not with Loki 645 around. Times like these, when the yeerk is relegated to zir jar, must be the closest they get.

I close my eyes a moment, and banish the thought from my mind.

“You’re thinking too small; they could use it as an infestation site. Humans check in, controllers check out,” Kate finishes grimly.

“ _You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave_ -“ Tommy sings under his breath.

“That’s a hotel, dumbass,” Eli corrects.

“So we stop them,” America says, pulling us back on track.

“And the yeerks are okay with this?” Billy asks, sounding a bit off-balance. I know how he feels. This is really happening. We’re in contact with the yeerk resistance. I’m not helpless anymore, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Animorphs are no longer flying blind, depending on luck to trip over yeerk plans.

“The Peace Movement knows I’m telling you about this, yeah,” I answer. “I assume they know what we’ll have to do.”

“What do we have to do?” Teddy asks the room at large, “I doubt running around as bugs or crashing through walls in our battle morphs would help much.”

“I don’t know, maybe we could get it shut down from health code violations?” Kate suggests.

“We want the yeerks out, not the hospital shut down.”

“We could at least do some recon?” Billy asks. He looks to Noh-Varr. Noh’s one of the oldest of us, and he has the most background knowledge of tactics and yeerks, having been trained in the Kree army.

The Kree warrior nods, thinking. “There must be a reason they are taking over the hospital- we should find out.”

We stare at him. He’s looking toward the ceiling, which he tends to do when he’s deep in thought. Sometimes Noh-Varr’s head can be in the clouds, but he’s never just completely ignored half of a conversation before.

“Uh. Noh. We do know why they’re taking over the hospital: to infest the patients,” Kate says it gently, with an edge of wariness.

He just shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. You have several billion humans on this planet. The yeerks would never resort to wounded hosts.”

“Wounds heal,” Eli says impatiently.

“Not without scars. The yeerks are looking for power: status, wealth, prestige. Why would a yeerk want a sub-par host?”

A creeping cold runs down my spine. Noh-Varr’s sentence makes sense, of course, but it isn’t something any of my other teammates would ever say. It’s clinical and calculating, and completely empty of human empathy.

Oddly enough, it isn’t something I can imagine Loki 645 saying. It does, however, explain why I was the one infested, instead of my brother. Don is older, charismatic, on his way to a prestigious career in surgery. Plus, anyone who glances at our household knows that he’s Father’s favorite. The only thing I have that Don doesn’t is two fully functioning legs.

Billy looks ill. I’m not staring, I have a habit of glancing at him during these meetings. You know, to find any hint that Loki 645 hasn’t been holding up zir end of the deal.

“So the yeerks want rich white able-bodied people, great,” Eli snarks. “Sucks to be you, Kate.”

“Suck an egg, Eli.”

“The yeerks really care that much about disability?” Billy asks Noh-Varr. He looks like he’s going to be sick. I wonder if the yeerks would consider Billy a sub-par host. I wonder if Loki tells Billy how much of a _sacrifice_ it is for zir to be paired with a defective host. I wonder.

“This really isn’t that complex,” Noh-Varr says, looking around in confusion. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? The best soldiers are those who are physically perfect.”

The human members of our group stare at Noh-Varr in growing horror.

I guess I had just accepted it before, but now that I think about it, Noh-Varr’s light skin and white hair look like something out of a eugenicist’s wet dream.

Now _I_ feel sick.

“Alright! So the yeerks are gross quasi-Nazis. Awesome. Like we needed another reason to hate them. Moving on,” Tommy urges us. I glance toward him. He can’t be unaffected by this, right? His foster homes have mostly not been Jewish, but he and Billy are both Jews. Their grandfather was a Holocaust survivor! Even without a personal connection to the genocide, my family taught me the horrors that happen when we try to decide what kind of people are acceptable- did Tommy’s guardians really never do the same?

“Noh-Varr-“ Teddy begins.

“I don’t understand-“ he says.

“Humans aren’t like that,” Cassie says firmly, interrupting everyone else. “There isn’t- everyone matters. Everyone.” It’s more than a little idealistic, but I don’t argue, and neither does anyone else.

Noh-Varr considers this. “The Kree are different,” he says eventually. “We genetically modify our genome to fit our goals. Each member of the Kree race is designed to be perfect for their function. Mine was- I am a soldier. The yeerks would think similarly.” Despite his words, he looks uncertain of the last bit.

“Oh my god, you’re the ubermensch.”

“Why would a bunch of space slugs be like the Kree?” Teddy thinks to ask.

Noh-Varr doesn’t answer, instead looking troubled. He doesn’t meet our eyes.

“So. Hospital raid.”

-

We didn’t plan the mission terribly well, all things considered.

We didn’t want to run the risk of the yeerks discovering our human identities, but none of us felt comfortable morphing other humans except as a last resort. See, when you morph into an animal, you get all of its instincts, its muscle-memory, all of the urges and fears and desires that lurk in the ancient hindbrain (or so Loki explained to me once). You don’t get memories, or thoughts. You aren’t really morphing an individual who really exists, after all. You just have the DNA and a memory of meeting the DNA’s owner. That gives us enough material to shift into a near-clone, but it’s a clone with no history. Our morphs have no scars, no pasts.

I wasn’t really thinking about it when I gave him permission, but now I wonder what Billy felt when he first morphed me. I wonder what human instincts unfold themselves when you first find yourself in morph. I wonder what that says about us.

Anyway, we try not to morph other humans without their permission. It seems wrong- maybe not on par with what the yeerks do, but it’s at least impersonation.

Instead, we snuck in through the roof when a nurse came up there to illegally smoke a cigarette.

The inside team is made up of me, Tommy, Kate and America. Noh-Varr and Cassie are sitting this one out, on account of being incredibly conspicuous. The outside team is Billy, Teddy, and Eli, who are in pigeon morph, hopping from windowsill to windowsill, hoping to catch something suspicious.

Like I said, badly planned.

Anyway, as soon as we’re in, Kate demorphs and remorphs into a carbon copy of Lucky, the therapy dog from the pediatric ward. Lucky only has one eye and a limp, so I hope no one looks too closely at Kate, who looks like Lucky’s more fortunate brother.

The rest of us just demorph, for ease of opening doors. As long as we didn’t enter the hospital through official channels, our names won’t be on file, and we should be able to avoid detection.

The birds outside are set to start looking at the west end, working down from the top floors (where Controllers are more likely to leave blinds open), so we take the stairs and start looking at the third floor. We open the door for Kate and watch as she trots off to Pediatrics.

The three of us split up, all taking different doors.

My first twelve doors are a bust, but if it were that easy, someone would have already stumbled upon it. Mostly they’re locked, or closets, or contain confused patients. “Sorry, I thought this was my mom’s room” becomes my mantra. The words start to run together as I say them.

I’m not exactly sure what we expect to find. It’s not like there are likely to be jars of yeerks lined up in a supply closet, or a throne room where Visser Three sits and strokes the head of a hairless cat. Still, they can’t be transporting patients from the hospital all the way to the school to infest them, so there must be some storage space at the hospital where it’s done, right?

…Unless it’s actually done in ambulances, or there’s a subterranean tunnel from the hospital to the pool, or something.

Yeah, I’m beginning to think we should give up.

At around door twenty-three, I accidentally walk in on some important-looking guy doing paperwork. He looks at me. I look at him.

“What are you doing here?” he demands. “Guests aren’t supposed to be in this area-“

Shit. Ok. I can do this.

“Uh. Anna down in 304A keeps yelling about rats. I didn’t know who to call, and I couldn’t find anyone else.”

“Rats?” His dark, bushy eyebrows furrow and his voice almost cracks in horror. I wonder if it’s the horror of a hospital employee fearing lawsuits, or the horror of a yeerk fearing Animorphs.

He picks up his phone and dials an internal number.

“Sharon, we have a situation on the third floor, 304A. Send Jack up.” Be pauses to gives me a severe look. “Wait outside!” he says. I obediently step outside the office and close the door. I less-obediently press my ear to the wood to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation.

The doors aren’t soundproof, and this is what I hear:

“Yes, yes I know. No, I’m sure one escort will suffice. She’s a human invalid, not a Kree soldier, what do you expect? That’s an order. Do you want to explain to Visser Three why the Skrull bandits sabotaged the expansion under your watch? I thought not.”

I jump backwards just in time for the door to open. I smile innocently as the angry bureaucrat marches down the hall towards 304A.

I wait until he’s turned the corner to run for the stairs. Like hell I’m staying around to get caught. The door to the second floor opens, and I almost run into America.

“Nothing down that way,” she reports. “How’s the third floor?”

“Boring, except for an angry admin.” Well, he will be angry when he gets to 304A and finds out I lied.

“Great,” America drawls. “Find Tommy?”

“Find Tommy,” I agree.

He finds us first.

< _Paging Doctor America and Nurse Serrure_ ,> Tommy says from… somewhere.

“Who needs cellphones when you have thought-speech?” America asks.

“Does he know we can’t reply, though?” I wonder.

< _There’s something you need to see in 203. >_

America and I look at each other. We shrug and go to find Tommy. When we get close to the door, it opens a few inches, and Tommy’s head pokes out.

“Good you’re here! Get in, quick!”

“What?”

“How-“

I stupidly get too close, and Tommy just grabs the front of my shirt and hauls me through the door. America follows.

“Did you really need to-“ I stop. Tommy is gesturing wildly at a small plastic kiddie pool in the middle of the room. Next to it is an open briefcase, with a spindly machine sticking up out of one side. At the top of the machine is a large heating lamp, like the one I use for my pet snake.

I step forward. The pool is filled with murky green liquid. It’s a familiar sight, and I know that if I look closely, I will see dark shapes gliding through that water.

It looks like a yeerk pool.

They have a portable yeerk pool.

“What do we do?” I ask. What can we do?

“I found some rubbing alcohol in the cabinet,” Tommy says, “Do you think it’d kill them, if I dumped it in the pool?”

America looks uneasy.

“They’re aliens. I don’t know if that would bother them,” I admit. It’s not like Loki 645 gave me a bulleted list of yeerk weaknesses. “And it wouldn’t make them leave the hospital. They could just rinse out the pool.”

He looks at the cabinet thoughtfully. “Do you think it’d break the machine-thingy if I dump it on _that_?”

“You’re an idiot,” America says. “If you’re going to destroy the-“ she waves a hand at the machine with the heat lamp.

“-Kandrona generator,” I supply.

“-that,” she continues, “just _do_ it.”

Tommy looks at her blankly. America rolls her eyes and mimes punching.

A pink blush spreads on Tommy’s pale face.

“Oh, right.”

Before our eyes, he hunches over and morphs gorilla. The story of how he got that morph is several shades of hilarious. It’s amazing how easy it is to get into “secure” animal enclosures when you can turn into a fly, and have several friends running interference with zoo staff.

Anyway, Tommy’s gorilla morph doesn’t see much use. He thought it’d be awesome, but he ended up using the cheetah way more in battle. The gorilla is mostly useful for its opposable thumbs, and, in this case, its ability to smash things into tiny, tiny pieces.

He really only gets one good smash in before we hear footsteps down the hall.

We freeze and look at each other. Two humans and a gorilla. There is no desk, no table, no bed in this room to hide behind, only a set of cabinets and two chairs. Maybe a small human could fit into one of the cabinets, but not two. Not a gorilla.

A cold burst of adrenaline rushes through my veins, and we all try to morph as fast as we can. America and I go small. My first instinct is to morph a mouse, but by the shape of the arms America is sprouting, her instinct was moth.

Tommy will be lucky to be back to human before the footsteps reach the door.

“Think small!” I urge him, and when my mouth changes too much to manage speech, I switch to though-speak, < _Think human_! >

< _I’m trying_! > he yells. He lunges for the largest cabinet and opens it, but he’s still too large to fit.

America and I jump in, tiny misshapen creatures that don’t yet fully resemble a rodent OR an insect.

Tommy wedges as much of his body inside the cabinet as he can, shrinking more and more by the second.

He manages to close the cabinet door scant seconds after we hear the twist of the door handle.

Of course they would be coming for this room. Of _course_.

We wait, silent, for the newcomer to find us.

There’s some sort of scuffle in the room outside the cabinet. An adult grunts, rubber sneakers skid on the tile floor. There’s the scream of plastic against tile, and the slosh of water. Something bumped the pool.

“Just- freaking-“ a deep adult voice says, exerting obvious effort.

Another person gives a muffled screech in reply.

“Come _on_!” the adult urges.

Then the muffled scream becomes un-muffled, and the assailant curses loudly.

“MotherFUCKER! You _bit_ me!”

The door to the room is thrown open, and hits the wall with a bang. Sneakers take off along the hallway, quickly followed by the rapid footsteps of the other guy.

Tommy finishes morphing and pushes the cabinet door open slowly. The room is empty. There’s fluid pooling on the floor, but the yeerks in the pool seem unharmed. The destroyed Kandrona generator seems obvious to me, but I guess the Controller didn’t notice it.

< _Was that a kid?_ > America asks.

“It sounded like one,” Tommy whispers.

 _< Let’s just get out_.>

Tommy peeks out the open door and looks both ways, before sprinting off across the hall.

< _Where_ -?> I ask.

“I’m not staying here a second longer than I need to,” Tommy complains. I’ll open a window and we’ll fly out.

Tommy morphs his falcon, carefully picks my mouse body up in his talons, and together we leap from the second story window and take flight.

The plan sucked. I’m still amazed it worked.

< _TIME TO GO_ ,> Tommy calls to the outside team.

< _Did you find something_? > Billy asks.

< _Did you blow your cover_? > Eli asks.

< _Where’s Kate_? > Teddy wonders.

< _Shit, we forgot Kate_. > Tommy does a graceful flip in mid-air, apparently forgetting that he’s holding me in his talons. I think if I was a human I’d puke.

< _SET ME DOWN FIRST_! > I yell. Tommy ignores me.

< _Here Katie-Katie_! > Tommy sends. I really hope he’s not yelling that to the whole hospital.

< _You found something? >_ Kate asks from… somewhere. It’s hard to pinpoint location from thought-speech.

< _Been there, done that, ran away screaming. Ready to go_? >

< _You couldn't have said that before the toddler when to town on my ears? >_

< _Apparently not_ ,> Eli answers. < _Can you get out safely_? >

< _Uh_ ,> Kate answers. < _Probably_? >

< _Well, stay hidden. We kinda smashed their toys, and they’re probably going to be looking for rats_. >

< _What? Why? You know what, nevermind. I’ll be out in five_. >

-

-

“You found a portable yeerk pool?” Eli sounds horrified and almost angry.

“Yup. It even had a carrying case.” Tommy’s leaning against the wall with this arms crossed, so I know that his casual tone is hiding unease.

“UGH!” Teddy groans. “You mean the yeerks could be anywhere now? They don’t even have to visit the yeerk pool anymore? How are we supposed to-“ he cuts himself off, frustrated.

“We’re not _supposed to_ anything. It’s not like they have an obligation to play fair,” Billy says, only it’s not Billy. That’s Loki 645. My stomach sinks a bit. We just got back from the mission. Billy hasn't had the opportunity to dump the yeerk.

Loki is here, in this room, right now.

“But you destroyed it, right?” Kate asks. She cuts through the complaining like an arrow, intent on her point.

“Yeah, smashed to bits,” America agrees. “But we don’t know if they have spares.”

“They could have dozens. They might just replace the one at the hospital and increase security,” Noh-Varr says thoughtfully.

Several of my teammates turn toward Billy.

“Do they?” Cassie asks.

Billy looks up, and for a moment, confusion shows on his face, before the Symbiote realizes which of them is being addressed.

“No idea,” Loki replies. “Resource allocation has never been one of my duties. I don’t have access to that sort of information. The portable Kandrona generators definitely aren’t common, but we might have several dozen on Earth.” Billy’s face looks thoughtful for a moment, before ze continues. “Or we might have three. It’s hard to say.”

“Well that was incredibly unhelpful,” Eli announces. “Serrure, can you see what the Peace Movement knows? If the yeerks can break the three-day rule, anyone could be a Controller. Keep your eyes open, and lay low for awhile.”

“Sure.”

“Ok. Ok. So best case scenario, it can’t be replaced and the yeerks have to abandon the hospital as an infestation site. Worst case scenario, we set them back a few- days? Weeks? Until they can get a new generator.” Kate rubs her forehead, as if trying to chase away a headache.

“Man!” Tommy complains. “Can’t we celebrate for _five minutes_ before the yeerks one-up us again? This is bullcrap.”

“The yeerks have us outnumbered, with a vast surplus of resources. We’re always going to be playing catch-up with them,” Noh-Varr agrees.

Kate has a look in her eye. We’ve all learned to hold a cautious respect for that look, because it means she has a drastic plan.

“Oh god, what?” Billy asks, and I know it’s him this time. “Stop looking like that, it’s giving me the creeps.”

“I don’t care what the plan is, just let me do _something_ ,” Cassie barters.

Kate looks thoughtful, but doesn’t immediately respond. We all stop our snide remarks to look to Kate, waiting for her to reveal her idea.

“We destroyed the portable Kandrona generator to chase the yeerks out of the hospital.”

“Yeah..?”

“So. If we could sabotage the main Kandrona generator…” Kate trails off, waiting for the implications to blossom among our teammates.

“We could chase the yeerks out of the city,” I finish.

The possibilities dazzle me. We could be free. Cassie could go back home. The yeerks would be forced out of their hosts, or starve. This could be a real triumph over the alien invaders, when so far we’ve only inconvenienced the invasion and prolonged the inevitable. We could hit the yeerks where it hurt, instead of just biding our time until the Skrulls come to beat the yeerks back.

“Yeah… one problem: we don’t know where it is or how to hurt it. Somehow I doubt it’ll be as easy as punching it really hard,” Teddy points out.

“Plus, it’ll be guarded,” Eli continues.

There’s a silence as we all think this over.

“This is completely nuts and we’re all going to die,” Tommy tells us.

“Let’s do it,” says America.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the next four chapters backwards, which is why this took so long to post. I have chapters 7 and 8 almost finished, but I haven't even started chapter 6. Oops.


	6. The Kandrona Mission, Part Two: Loki 645

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a problem with this plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: discussion of fictional genocide, body horror (morphing)
> 
> Inspired by Animorphs _The Stranger_

Part two: Loki 645

I’m not supposed to be here. I’m a hanger-on at best. By rights, I’m supposed to be floating in a jar of water in Billy’s room right now. The only reason I’m here at all is because the post-mission debriefing happened too fast to stop by Billy’s house. Like all those meetings I spent in Serrure’s brain, it’s my host who is meant to be here, not the yeerk within.

Considering this, I’m unwilling to speak up when Kate suggests the unthinkable: destroying the Kandrona, which supports all yeerk life in the city.

Funny, how they are so nonchalant about committing genocide. I wonder if anyone even spared a thought for me, for the Peace Movement. I wonder if they even consider us to be sentient beings.

My verbal silence is easy to maintain, but some of my horror must slip through the bond to Billy.

‘ _You think it’s a bad idea_.’

‘ _I think I need Kandrona radiation to survive.’_

There’s surprise, then unease from Billy. Our relationship is too new for him to immediately think of me, I guess. It’s a nice idea, that Billy doesn’t think of me as part of the yeerk threat. Much nicer than the possibility that he doesn’t care.

_‘Oh. Yeah, but we could probably find a portable pool for you, right? If the hospital had one, there must be others around.’_

Oh Billy. Oh poor optimistic Billy. At other times, his naivety is endearing, but ignorance is less charming when my life is at stake. Instead of asking him how confident he is that we could find and steal another portable pool within three days (i.e. before I died of starvation), I decide to point out another fatal flaw in this plan:

‘ _The others are definitely willing to risk their lives to do that.’_ Billy can feel the insincerity in my words, so I don’t bother to clarify.

Undaunted, he tries to defend the others. ‘ _Like it or not, you’re part of this team. They do know that. They don’t want you to die.’_ He pauses. _‘If they did, we had the opportunity to do it. We have the opportunity every time I leave you in the jar._ ’

‘ _Thanks Billy, that makes me feel so much better._ ’

‘ _Loki come on, we share a head. I can tell what you’re feeling_.’ I guess my sarcasm didn’t fully mask my fear and revulsion. Ironically, all the skill in lying and misdirection I learned from impersonating my hosts over the years are completely useless to hide my feelings from someone with whom I share brainspace.

I can’t hide this from Billy, and I’m not sure I even want to.

But how to introduce the topic?

‘ _You’ve seen the yeerk pool, yes?’_ I ask him. _‘How many yeerks would you say are in it?’_

_‘Like, a lot. A couple thousand, maybe.’_

_‘How many Controllers do you think there are in the city?’_

_‘I have no idea.’_

_‘Your best guess.’_

_‘A couple hundred? A thousand?’_

_‘Not as many as the yeerks in the pool?’_

_‘Uh, geeze, I hope not.’_

_‘And yet those hostless yeerks, who aren’t responsible for the invasion in even the slightest way, deserve to slowly starve to death?’_

Billy freezes.  I continue. _“But hey, maybe they want to take hosts. Maybe they are waiting to take over a human’s life and mind, keeping them a helpless slave to our whims.’_

_‘You’ve made your point.’_

_‘No, I don’t think I have. Not all yeerks want hosts, Billy. There are pacifists who never leave the pool. Not many, no. There are more yeerks who only take voluntary hosts- and I’m not the first yeerk to go native, you know. It’s a known danger for the empire. Young yeerks are warned against it before we get our first hosts. ‘Don’t get attached’ we’re told. ‘They feel so strongly and so vividly, don’t get lost in it. Keep a firm boundary between yourself and the host. Their feelings are not yours. Their bonds are not yours. They need us to guide them, like young grubs learning to swim,’_ I continue.

 _‘Stop,’_ he asks.

I finally go silent.

‘ _You’ve made your point_.’ If I got this reaction from him, I suppose I have.

Then, before I can stop him-

(this is a lie. I am not connected to Billy’s central nervous system right now, but it would be so easy to do so. It would be the simplest thing in the world to reach out and paralyze Billy within his own body; it’s what I am for, it’s what millions of years of evolution have prepared all yeerks to do-)

-Billy speaks aloud.

“What about Loki?” he asks.

Chatter breaks out. Eli and Kate trade glances, having a short conversation in the tilt of their heads and tiny motions of their eyebrows. Perhaps they think we don’t know that they do this, checking in with each other before taking a stance on any decision we have to make as a team. It makes good strategic sense, though. Co-leadership is an inefficient style, but Eli and Kate make it work.

“What about him?” Tommy says, arms crossed. He doesn’t like me much, but I don’t take it personally ( _lie_ ). It isn’t about who I am. With him, it’s about _what_ I am.

A lot of people in Tommy’s life turned out to be Controllers. People he was close to. People he trusted. After we had to bust him out of a foster home populated by Controllers last year, he’s only let his guard down around the Animorphs.

I can see why he hates me, when I proved that not even his team is safe.

Cassie looks unsure. “Are we going to let zir die?”

“No,” America says.

“Maybe,” Eli answers.

Kate looks annoyed, like maybe she and Eli don’t see eye-to-eye on this. I tentatively put Kate in the category of ‘people to appeal to if/when Serrure comes for me’.

“The death of one yeerk is worth the freedom of hundreds of humans, yes?” Noh-Varr asks.

Several of the others grimace. Billy’s stomach churns. There are a lot of loose associations running through Billy’s mind now. I don’t see them, exactly, but I know that the areas of Billy’s brain that deal with memory and horror are working overtime.

 I wonder if Noh-Varr knows how counterproductive it was for him to be the one making that argument.

“We decided not to kill Loki when we found out about zir. If we go back now, it won’t be because of anything ze’s done, it will just be because it’s convenient for us,” Teddy points out.

“The yeerks have back-up Kandrona generators,” Kate says, like she’s making an announcement.

 _‘-and who do you think have access to them?_ ’ I think to Billy. _‘Not the powerless pacifists in the pool, that’s for sure.’_

“When we infiltrate the pool and do recon, we’ll keep an eye out for one. Worst case scenario, we’ll steal one when they replace the one at the hospital,” she continues.

 _‘Bad timeline,’_ I point out. _‘If we steal one after we destroy the Kandrona, they won’t be replacing the one at the hospital at all; they’ll be hoarding those generators like gold.’_

Tired of hearing my running commentary, Billy speaks up. “We’ll find one before we sabotage the Kandrona?”

“We’ll try,” Eli agrees, grimly.

-

I’m not terribly surprised that Billy was only willing to stand up for me, but not for the thousands of innocent yeerks swimming, unknowing, in the pool. As I know well, it’s easier to feel sympathy for the one alien who shares your head than for thousands of aliens you’ve never met.

Still, this puts me in a difficult position. If I sabotage Billy’s role in the upcoming mission, I corroborate every suspicion Eli and Tommy have about my loyalties. If I try to save my brethren in the pool, I won’t be able to keep being Billy’s partner. And without that reason to keep me around, I’m as good as dead.

It’s worse than my-life-or-the-pool. If I sabotage the mission during a crucial moment, the Animorphs will be captured and infested. Serrure will be infested again. All my friends, living out their worst fear. Maybe I’d be spared for my role in their discovery. More likely I’d be the scapegoat for how long the Animorphs have remained at large.

If I sabotage the mission before we are noticed infiltrating the yeerk pool, the Animorphs will just try again later, without me to enforce my conscience on them.

The team’s freedom, or the lives of several thousand yeerks? For a better person, the choice might seem obvious.

 But how can I allow the team to be captured? How can I let Billy be taken against his will, my place here, wrapped comfortably around his mind, snatched up by someone who will rip and grab and Control? How can I betray Serrure so completely, again?

How can I not? How can I close my eyes and allow Amora 529, Lorelei 337, Mystique 428, Hela 641, Aldrif 100, and countless other yeerks die a slow, agonizing death?

And, let’s be honest (for once): I die either way. My choice is to die betraying my friends- either a quick death being stomped by the Animorphs, or a slow death withering in a jar- or to die betraying my people, slow starvation, descending into incoherence as my body begins to disintegrate within Billy’s head.

I want to ask, to beg the Animorphs not to force my hand this way, but I keep seeing Serrure’s eyes. Not the green irises that Billy knows, but Serrure’s face in the mirror. I remember how his face looked every morning we’d wake up, and I’d walk his body down the hall to brush his teeth. I’d look up into the mirror and for a second, while I wasn’t paying attention, I swear I could see him screaming behind those eyes.

I promised myself, I promised _Serrure_ I’d never do that to him again.

What is the worth of a promise from Loki 645?

Surely not the death of thousands?

Suddenly, inanely, I wish I knew what Don would think about all this.

I’m not his sibling. I know this. I am not Serrure, and every word I’ve ever spoken to Don has been a lie, for all that is has come out of his younger brother’s mouth. I know everything Don has ever done for me has been meant for Serrure, that I am an unwanted and invisible presence in his life.

Still, I wish I could ask his counsel. Don is kind, and compassionate, and a much better person than Serrure or I. One of the first signs that I was losing myself to my host was my gradual admiration for Don, but looking back, I can’t imagine feeling any other way.

That road is closed to me, now. I gave up any claim to Serrure’s life. I never should have had it in the first place.

-

“Any idea on how to get into the yeerk pool? Pretty sure they closed the one at the McDonalds after last time.” Tommy makes a good point- on the night that Billy became my host, the others stampeded out of the hidden entrance to the yeerk pool. I use ‘stampeded’ literally here. Later the next day, the yeerk’s cover-story involved a rogue PETA-supporter and a train car of circus animals.

For just a moment, I hope the mission planning will end here. If they can’t get into the pool, they can’t find the Kandrona. If they can’t get into the pool, they can’t get caught by Visser Three. But I know my teammates are not stupid. One of them will remember the yeerk in their midst. One of them will turn to me and ask for the location of another entrance.  I begin formulating a lie, some reason not to tell them. Oh, what if I said the yeerks had scanners that would vaporize any non-human animals that went through?

“I know another way in.”

I am an idiot.

I forgot about Serrure.

Subconsciously, I curl Billy’s fingers into fists, his nails biting into his palm. He flinches, and I carefully release control.

‘ _Loki_?’

‘ _Sorry_.’

“Awesome,” Eli says, rubbing his hands together. “So we’ve got a way in. Now, what are we looking for here? Some kind of machine?”

“The one at the hospital looked kinda like a heat lamp. So this one should be a giant version of that,” Tommy looked around for confirmation: to America, who had seen it with him, to Noh-Varr, our resident alien expert, to Billy and I, the yeerk/human Symbiote.

Noh-Varr probably knows enough about the Kandrona to correct him. I speak first, as a gesture of goodwill. My voice does not shake. Only Billy knows the fear clawing at my mind.

“Not at all. The portable Kandrona are repurposed, cobbled together from supplies native to Earth. The main Kandrona will be large, cylindrical, like a pill or an egg. Maybe nine feet from end to end. It emits invisible radiation; you can feel it buzzing from a dozen yards away.” A thought occurs to me, and I have to fight to keep from smiling. “It isn’t necessarily located within the yeerk pool complex.”

America gives me an unimpressed, incredulous look. I return it with one of practiced innocence.

“You’re going to have to explain that one, slug-kid,” Kate demands.

I spread my hands wide. “The Kandrona emits radiation that is concentrated in the yeerk pool. But it has a range of several miles. The generator could be anywhere in the city.”

“But wouldn’t they keep it close by?” Eli asks, perhaps suspicious of my motives. “The pool is the most well-protected yeerk settlement. If this thing’s so important, why would they keep it anywhere else?”

Because the Kandrona rays can travel a greater distance if it’s located on higher ground, I do not tell him. I honestly don’t know where it is, but I’m not about to make it any easier for them to find it, either.

Instead, I shrug. “Maybe we know better than to keep all our eggs in one basket.”

“Uhuh. And you just happen to know what this thing looks like, but not where it is?” Cassie asks.

I’m surprised it’s her asking. She hasn’t questioned me yet, but I suppose it was only a matter of time.

“I’ve seen the one on the Pool Ship,” I explain. “I assume the Earth-based Kandrona will be similar.”

“Pool Ship?” Kate echoes, with dread. It’s still odd for me to interact with the team without guile, as myself. I forget how much they don’t know.

“How do you think we got to Earth?” I ask her. “Of course we have a yeerk pool in orbit.”

-

After I dropped that revelation on the others (and it really shouldn’t be that surprising, if they had any sense), the meeting dissolves into chatter. I recede back into Billy’s mind, allowing him full use of his body once more.

This is probably a bad thing, because I stop paying as much attention, and by the time I refocus on the conversation, I’ve been volunteered as a Kandrona-detector.

-which is not something I am actually capable of.

‘ _It’s not a terrible plan_ ,’ I admit to Billy. ‘ _but it relies on abilities I absolutely don’t have_.’

 _‘You literally said that you could feel it when you’re near the Kandrona_ ,’ he replies, unconvinced.

‘ _Not consistently. Not well enough to use it as a radar_!’

‘ _Loki, I know you don’t want to do this, but you can’t lie to me. I can tell this freaks you out. I can tell you’re trying to find a way out of it_.’

The frustrating thing is that I can _absolutely_ lie to Billy, but this time he has mis-identified the lie.

‘ _It’s like the feeling of the air before a thunder storm. Yes, it has an identifiable atmosphere, but I’m no meteorologist_ ,’ I explain.

I can already tell that Billy doesn’t believe me.

Well, the good news is that if I can’t locate the Kandrona, then neither can the rest of the team. The bad news is that they’ll all think I’m tricking them- which I _am_ , but not in this particular way.

It’s like the worst of both worlds.

Eli lays out the plan: “Ok, so Kate and I plotted out a map of the city on my phone. If we assume the Kandrona has to be within say, two miles of the yeerk pool, that gives us a search radius and a place to start.”

“This is gunna take _so long_ ,” Tommy complains. Everyone ignores him.

“We’ll split up to cover more ground, but the only people we’re sure can sense the Kandrona are Loki and Noh-Varr,” Kate continues. “Cover as much ground as you can today, and if necessary we’ll meet up again after school tomorrow.”

“I’m going,” Cassie announces. “If I have to stay in this room for one more day I think I’m going to implode.”

Kate and Eli trade glances, as they always do. Before either of them can raise objections, someone else beats them to the punch.

“You can be in my group,” Teddy volunteers. “If anyone asks, we can say you’re my cousin. You don’t look _that_ much like the picture on the news anymore, not with what Noh-Varr did to your hair.”

Cassie does not pat her cropped hair self-consciously, but it looks like she wants to.

“Sure, okay, whatever, can we go?” Tommy demands.

-

No one has the heart or energy to argue with Cassie. I quickly volunteer to be in the other search party (the one without the highly suspicious Amber Alert candidate). Unfortunately, that means that she’s in Noh-Varr’s group, making them even more suspicious by putting the Kree soldier and the missing girl in the same search party.

If we don’t get caught, it will be a god-damn miracle.

Both groups start from the Warehouse, my group walking West while Noh-Varr’s group walks East. We’re supposed to follow a vague zig-zag pattern, to cover the largest amount of ground while staying close enough to the buildings that we could, theoretically, sense the Kandrona. This is all based on my vague guesstimate of ‘a dozen yards’, which is (as previously stated), a vague guesstimate and definitely not concrete enough to be basing a search pattern on.

None of my objections are heeded, because everyone knows I don’t want to be on this mission, and thus all of my complaints are suspect.

 _‘I’m not bitter or anything_ ,’ I think bitterly, with bitter expression.

‘ _Just do your best_ ,’ Billy asks.

There’s an air of weariness about him, and for a moment I wish I could do as he asks.

Then I remember that I’m being asked to facilitate the genocide of my species, and I don’t feel as bad.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, ready to look for a q-tip in a needle-stack?”

I am the only one who is amused by my turn of phrase. The others are either ignoring me or giving me unimpressed looks.

‘ _Loki, why?’_ Billy asks.

 _‘It’s much more dangerous than looking for a needle in a haystack,_ ’ I explain.

He gives me the mental equivalent of a groan.

With that, we set off walking down the street.

My team consists of Kate, America, Tommy, Serrure, and me/Billy. As we walk, Tommy starts up a conversation with Kate about the relative likelihood that the chemistry teacher Kate had last year (and Tommy has this year) is secretly a Soviet spy.

“Ms. Romanova isn’t old enough to be a Soviet spy, Tommy, the USSR fell like twenty years ago.”

“That’s what they want you to think!” Tommy says with a grin.

I try to ignore them. I try to even out Billy’s breathing and focus on the air around us. I hear the dull sound of an airplane overhead, background chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves in the wind. I hear the roar of traffic, someone’s cellphone going off, and a dozen people (including Tommy) talking.

I don’t feel anything like the Kandrona.

We move on.

After we’ve walked half a mile, everything becomes too much: the background noise, the smell of gasoline, Tommy’s constant chatter, America’s warning looks, Serrure’s silent stare.

I can’t keep up this pace. I can’t keep doing this. I’m not sure if Billy’s anxiety is infecting my mood or (more likely) this feeling is all me.

“Flying would be faster,” I announce.

Kate scrunches up her face in annoyance, but tells everyone else to morph pigeon- our usual bird morphs are all different, and would look suspicious flying together.

We peel off from the group one by one, ducking behind corners and bushes and benches until only Billy and I are left walking quietly down the sidewalk.

I reach the end of the block and look around. There are few people out and about, taking walks or running errands, but none of them are paying attention to Billy and me. I step backwards into an alcove between a brick wall and a large planter.

My skin changes first. The color fades out of it, making Billy’s arms look like they’re from a black-and-white photo. Then the feathers start to grow, changing Billy’s sparse arm hair into soft down feathers and sleek flight feathers. Our bones thin out and become hollow, and I’m beginning to fear that the long, fragile bones will snap when we finally start shrinking.

Morphing isn’t pretty, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It never happens the same way twice. This time, we have almost fully-functional pigeon wings before our face changes at all. I’m glad there aren’t any security cameras nearby, because not only would we be in big trouble, but whoever was watching them would probably have nightmares about this.

Billy does.

The floor rushes up to meet us as Billy’s sneakers melt into pigeon claws.

‘ _It’s kind of nauseating, having you in control when we morph_ ,’ Billy tells me. ‘ _I’m feeling kind of dizzy_.’

‘ _I felt the same way the other day, it might just be the pigeon morph_.’ Serrure would know for sure. He spent several months watching me morph in his body.

Now _I’m_ feeling a bit sick.

Luckily, the pigeon mind doesn’t care about any of this, and I sit back and let it take over for a few minutes.

The pigeon cocks its head, looks this way and that, examining everything that might possibly be food.

It notices several other pigeons around, and takes to the air. Surely the other pigeons will have found something to eat.

The pigeon isn’t another entity sharing our head, like Billy and me. Instead, we have become the pigeon, and its instincts are our own. When I say I let the pigeon mind take control, imagine letting your tiredness take control after a long day, imagine taking the back seat to your hunger after you wake up. The pigeon-hunger is our hunger now, just as the pigeon-fear is ours, and the pigeon-instinct to flock together.

The other pigeons are, of course, our team.

< _Are we going to be close enough to the buildings for you to smell the Kandrona, or whatever_? > America asks.

< _I have twelve yards of leeway, I think we should be fine, >_ I answer, sounding much more confident than I feel. Changing your tone via thought-speak is a skill, and I have learned it well.

< _Well, let’s get moving_ ,> Kate says with a sound like the pigeon equivalent of a sigh.

We make much better time in the air, breezing past four blocks in the time it took for us to walk one. I don’t feel anything like the Kandrona, and the most exciting thing that happens for the next hour is that Tommy’s pigeon-mind gets distracted by a half-eaten burger lying on the sidewalk, and has to be intercepted before he tries to eat it.

We’re beginning to think about finding a place to demorph when I feel something.

For a second, I am filled with dread; If we’ve found the Kandrona, my life will be over one way or another.

Then the thought passes, and I realize that this feeling, while similar, is not Kandrona radiation.

This isn’t ozone, tingling, the pressure of the air before a storm. This is a buzzing, a heat, like the rustling of grass and a dozen people whispering at once. It’s eerie, and strange, and it might be enough to distract my team from this terrible, monstrous mission.

Billy is beginning to notice it to. ‘ _Is that-?_ ’

I wonder if the others can feel it.

I follow it.

< _Wait, what_? > Tommy says as I peel off from the flock, pumping my little pigeon wings and taking to the sky.

< _Where are you going_? > Kate demands.

< _I found something_. >

Four other pigeons take to the air and follow me. I glide past a bank, a dry cleaners, several clothing stores and a Christian bookstore that I can only assume sells Christian books.

< _This is a bit far, isn’t it_? > Kate asks. < _I thought you could only sense it from a couple yards away_. >

< _Can’t you feel it_? > I ask. The buzzing is getting stronger, and the wind and the buzz combine to guide my pigeon wings onward. I don’t feel forced, but instead like I’m riding a wave, being swept along.

< _It feels like a heartbeat_ ,> Serrure says. < _It wants us to go this way_. >

< _Ok, that’s not creepy or anything, > _Tommy accuses _. <Also, aren’t we flying the wrong way? This is the part of town Noh is supposed to cover!_>

< _It’s here, it’s right here_! >

I swoop down over rows of houses, heading toward the lot at the end of the block. My pigeon eyes catch a glimpse of white hair down on the sidewalk, and Billy has just enough time to think-

 _‘Is that Noh-Varr_?’

-before we’re gone.


	7. The Trip, Part One: Eli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli and company learn something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Animorphs _The Stranger_ , _The Invasion_ and _Young Avengers Presents Issue 1_.

The sun is shining in my eyes.

I squint and turn my head. I have to blink a couple times before my vision clears up.

“What happened?” Teddy asks.

I don’t know. We’re standing on the sidewalk downtown, about a ten minute walk from my grandma’s apartment. I don’t know how we got here, or what’s going on.

I glance around. Along with Teddy, Cassie and Noh-Varr are within eyesight.

Something weird just happened. We’ve been teleported or kidnapped or blacked-out or something.

I knew I shouldn’t have put the runaway and the Kree soldier on the same team.

“You can’t be out here,” I tell Cassie urgently. How did they talk me into this in the first place? If a yeerk sees her-! If they see her with _us_ , they’ll know we had something to do with her disappearance.

We all look at each other, and as one we duck into the small frozen yogurt place across the street.

We take a booth toward the back, Cassie sandwiched in between Teddy and Noh-Varr to shield her from sight through the large glass windows.

“So did anyone see a teleporter, or-?” Cassie asks, hunched over and trying to appear small.

I shake my head. “Nothing. No flash of light, no strange machines. Just there, then here.”

“And if we’re here, where are Billy and the others?” Teddy asks nervously.

We all look at Noh-Varr, who’s been entirely silent. To my surprise, he’s just sitting there in the plastic booth looking glazed and blissful.

“You ok there, Noh?” Teddy asks gently.

This is it. Noh-Varr’s lost it.

“He’s back,” Noh-Varr says, in a daze. “Plex is back online.”

“You’ve lost me,” Cassie sighs. “What’s Plex?”

“It’s his ship,” I explain. “But it’s at the bottom of the ocean, isn’t it? Do alien computers not need air to reboot?”

Noh-Varr’s joy has dimmed a bit, and now he looks less like he just found out his best friend is alive, and more like he’s looking through a photo album full of dead friends.

“Plex was destroyed when the ship crashed down to Earth,” he answers. “But I can feel him up there in orbit.” He looks up, as if to see the spaceship through the ceiling and several miles of stratosphere.

“Feel him-?” Cassie asks.

“Kree technology operates via telepathy,” Teddy explains. “It’s also how we can talk to eachother while we’re in morph.”

“I thought the morphing technology was from the Skrulls, not the Kree.” Cassie has only really gotten the spark-notes version of the Animorphs’ origin, so it’s not surprising that the specifics are tripping her up.

“It’s complicated.” Teddy wasn’t there at the start either, and he shrugs helplessly.

“Hey, speak a little louder, I think the cashier can’t hear you yelling about aliens.”  I lean heavily on the plastic table and stare out of the front window. Something’s not right about all this. Something’s familiar…

A couple with a stroller walks past the window. On the other side of the street, a group of middle-schoolers walks home together.

Two white teenagers jog past, one heavy-set and wearing a baseball cap, one taller and wearing a hoodie. They high-five each other and quickly disappear from view.

Hey, was that-?

A third boy walks past the window. He’s shorter than they are, a little bald black boy wearing an over-large blue sweatshirt.

It’s me.

I nudge Teddy, but he looks at me (the me at the booth, not the me at the window) instead of where my finger is pointing. By the time he turns, the pedestrian is gone.

“What?”

“We have to go.” I get up and stand by the door, trying to find the boy in my line of sight.

“Yeerks?” Cassie asks behind me. I glance back at her. She looks cautious, but not scared.

“I’m not sure,” I admit. Did I really see myself, sixteen years old and hiding from the world under a hand-me-down hoodie? How? Why? The Yeerks don’t have any Skrull hosts (they’re notoriously difficult to infest, according to Noh-Varr; they can use their shape-shifting to move their ear canal whenever a yeerk manages to get close.), and even if they did have morph-capable hosts, they don’t know who I am, right? They wouldn’t have any reason to impersonate me.

Unless they _do_ know who I am.

“You guys stay here, I have to check something out.” I open the shop door slowly, trying to keep the bell from chiming.

“It might be yeerks and you want to go out on your own?” Teddy scoffs. “Yeah. Like we’re going to let you do that.”

“Cassie can’t be seen,” I insist.

“Give me ten minutes.”

-

It actually only takes three minutes for Teddy to duck into the tourist trap on the other street corner and buy a stupid knit beanie and a loud orange scarf for Cassie to wear.

Then he grabs an empty Starbucks cup from the sidewalk and shoves it into her hands.

“No one wants to look too closely at hipsters,” he explains. “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

The hat does disguise Cassie’s blonde hair, but I’m still bitter that we’ve lost so much time trailing the imposter. To make up for the delay, I morph Condor and take to the skies.

Before all this started, I was shit at reading maps. It just didn’t seem intuitive to me. Instead, I navigated mostly by landmarks: the school, the comic shop, the _other_ comic shop, my grandparents’ apartment, my mom’s old apartment, Billy’s house, Nate’s place, the park, whichever places I spent the most time.

After soaring over the city on my very own wings, maps began to make a lot more sense. Birds see the streets from that angle, after all (even if they’re usually more interested in dumpsters).

I get a couple false-positives before I find the right bald black head in the crowded street. I’m four blocks away from the others now, so I send a message in thought-speak. We haven’t tested the range much, so I’m not sure how far away they can hear me.

< _We’re on our way_ ,> Teddy sends back. He must’ve morphed something, too.

My doppelgänger settles down on a bench and fiddles nervously with his phone.

I settle comfortably on an awning and prepare to wait him out.

Every so often, a pedestrian passes the bench, and the not-Eli looks up as each stranger approaches.

There’s an older woman with a walker, a McDonald’s employee on break, an angry businessman on a cellphone, and a teenage girl in purple who-

< _Kate_? > I call to her.

She stops and looks around. I get a good look at her face- it’s definitely her. But she’s wearing her hair in a ponytail, up and out of her face. Kate has blunt dark bangs that fall just about at her eyebrows. She did it on impulse about four months ago, and her group of friends at school didn’t stop talking about it for a week. I don’t know a lot about hair, but I know this: you can go from long hair to bangs, but you can’t go back. You have to wait for it to grow out.

“Hello?” she asks suspiciously, her eyes quickly passing over me in her search for the speaker.

When no one answers, she gives up and walks away.

Kate knows my thought-voice. She knows my Condor morph.

What’s going on?

< _Was that Kate? > _the harrier asks as he lands beside me on the awning.

< _I don’t know. >_

 _< I’m sensing a pattern_,> he teases.

I do, too.

A couple of teenagers walk up to the bench. It takes me a minute to recognize Cassie and Noh-Varr. I know what they say about Clark Kent and Superman, but just by changing her style and slouching over an empty cup of coffee, Cassie manages to look like a subtly different person. Noh-Varr has apparently inherited Teddy’s heavy black jacket, and looks like an extra from The Matrix. Together, they look like a couple of kids who are trying too hard to be noticed, which paradoxically makes them fade into the crowd of other kids trying to be noticed.

Cassie glances toward my clone, then looks at me and Teddy, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.

< _We found a Kate-clone, too. Maybe there are others. We’ll follow him_ ,> I decide.

Cassie nods, and starts up a conversation with Noh-Varr about whether to buy a radio for the clubhouse.

Before my doppelganger finally gets bored of his phone, the bus comes. Cassie and Noh-Varr follow him on, and Teddy and I take flight in pursuit. Two stops later, fake-Eli gets off. The other two stay on the bus, and Teddy reassures them that we’ll keep an eye on the fake while they walk from the next stop.

I know this place, too. I take that same bus every two weeks to this block, then walk over to the post office to check my PO Box.

Um, like this fake-me is doing right now.

I flap my wings nervously, and pace a few feet in either direction from my perch on a neighboring rooftop.

< _What’s he doing_? > Teddy asks.

< _Checking my PO Box_ > I realize. Like I do. Like I’ve done for the last two years. Like I did when I used to wear that hoodie, when Kate wore her hair like that, back before we got the morphing power.

In bird morphs, we’re unable to follow my clone or imposter or past self or whoever inside the building. Instead, we fluff up our feathers and wait him out.

Eli comes out of the post office before Cassie and Noh-Varr catch up. He’s holding a small package under his arm. It’s about the size of a football, just a brown cardboard box with a packaging label stuck to the top.

< _Do we follow him or wait for the others_? > Teddy asks.

I flutter my wings.

< _We wait. I know where he’s going_. >

-

It doesn’t take long for Noh-Varr and Cassie to catch up, and then we’re off again. Teddy and I fly lazy circles high above our friends as we tail this person who looks like me, who is re-tracing my steps.

I was right, of course. He’s walking home.

Past the old gas station, around the corner, down three blocks.

Cassie and Noh-Varr are getting too close, barely fifteen feet behind him now. He never looks back. I wonder if I was that oblivious when I was his age. It seems like I’m on a hair-trigger these days, hyper-aware that anyone on the street could be trying to kill me.

Part of me wishes I could be that carefree again. Another part thinks it’s stupid; even without yeerks, this kid is asking for trouble being this unconcerned about his surroundings.

I circle around again, angling my wings so I swoop a bit lower this time.

Two guys approach my doppelganger…

Oh shit. I know these guys: Jason and Zack. They hang out on that street corner selling weed. Zack’s younger brother is in my grade. A couple years ago, we got in a fight because he said my grandfather was lying about being a victim of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. He said it was all a plot to discredit the US government. I gave him a black eye and got suspended for a week.

Ever since then, Zack gets all up in my face every time he sees me.

I circle back around before the roofs obscure my view of the confrontation.

There’s Zack, leaning over the kid who looks like me. There’s Jason, standing behind him, trapping him and backing up Zack.

There’s Cassie, marching over to them, yelling.

It’s like the moment after you put on 3D glasses at a movie theater. The blue and red images merge together and suddenly everything looks more real and immediate.

I remember this.

I remember being down there, trapped between Jason and Zack, when some blonde-haired freshman comes screaming out of nowhere, trying to defend my grandfather.

I remember telling her to butt out. I remember pushing her away. I remember Jason’s laughter and I remember almost losing that cardboard box tucked under my arm.

As I watch, the familiar scene plays out below.

< _Shit shit shit_ > I send to Teddy. I can’t interrupt Cassie’s diatribe; I have to let it play out like before. That’s how time travel works, right? Right? < _Shit shit shit holy fuck_ >

< _I wouldn’t worry about it_ ,> Teddy tells me, his thought-voice calm and reassuring, < _Cassie can handle herself. And if she needed help, Noh-Varr is as strong as like, five guys._ >

< _He’s not an imposter_ ,> I tell Teddy, unable to find the words to describe what I have just realized. < _This has happened before._ >

< _What_? >

< _He’s not an imposter- he’s me_ ,> this time I expand the radius of my thought-speak to include Noh-Varr and Cassie.

Far below us, Noh-Varr tilts his head and looks at the retreating back of my ~~doppelganger~~ past self. He places a pacifying hand on Cassie’s shoulder.

We have to talk. Regroup. This changes… everything. 

-

Noh-Varr and Cassie loiter next to my grandparents’ apartment building like a pair of the most conspicuous spies ever.

Maybe they look less obvious to people who aren’t me. Maybe a passing Controller will take them for awkward suburban teens trying to covertly buy weed instead of rogue time travelers trying to sabotage the Yeerk Empire.

The boy who used to be me walked inside the faded blue door several minutes ago, but I know exactly what’s happening inside: _My grandmother asks what I’m doing home so early. I readjust my backpack nervously, trying to hide how heavy and bulky it’s become with the package I’m smuggling into my room. She sends me to bring grandpa a snack. He’s awake when I come in. We talk. He calls me Hannah. I don’t correct him- it happens too often for me to bother. He’s not doing it maliciously- he has trouble with words sometimes, and the name change wasn’t so long ago. I sit with him awhile, then retreat to my room with my backpack and the box I just picked up from the mail._

-

Teddy and I are silent as we sit on the branch, watching through the bedroom window as the boy I used to be empties a syringe into his thigh.

< _I thought you said your mom’s insurance was going to cover hormones_ ,> Teddy says. This would be easier to handle if he sounded accusing or angry. Instead there’s a note of innocent confusion in his voice, like he’s just putting the pieces together and thinks he might have remembered something wrong.

< _I lied_. >

< _I wish you’d told us_. > Now his voice sounds empty, somehow. Maybe he’s feeling betrayed. Maybe he’s kicking himself for not seeing what was going on in my life. The thing Teddy gets, what I’m not going to explain to him, is that this wasn’t about him. This was about me, about making a decision about my own life, about deciding that my health was more important than someone else’s ideas about how my life should go.

The universe is big and broad. Somewhere out there, there might be an Eli who didn’t buy street hormones and inject them in secret, behind a locked door.

Maybe things turned out okay for that Eli, but I sure as hell don’t think he would have joined the fight against the yeerks.

“So are either of you going to tell us what’s going on, or are we just going to hang out under the tree until sunset?” Cassie asks, turning toward Noh-Varr as if she’s having a casual conversation with him, and not actually talking to two birds perched in the tree above her.

< _We’ll be leaving again soon. After this, Billy texted me and we went to hang out at the mall. >_ It’s not a day I’m likely to forget.

“So we’re really in the past,” Cassie says quietly, as if saying the words aloud will make this feel more real.

Noh-Varr seems unconcerned. I guess time-travel is less impressive when you’ve lived for several months on an alien planet.

“I’m up there with Plex,” he tells us to fill the time. “A dozen Kree warriors are waiting in orbit, one last-ditch effort to free our kinsmen from the yeerks. They don’t know what’s ahead.”

< _We can’t change things, >_ Teddy warns. < _We’d make a paradox or erase ourselves from existence or something, wouldn’t we?_ >

“It seemed fine when I intervened with those jackasses earlier,” Cassie points out, for the sake of argument.

It’s Noh-Varr who shakes his head this time. He casts one last yearning glance toward the sky and says “There’s no point. Someone else would die, some other tragedy would seem just as painful. If we tried to prevent this, we might lose ourselves trying to prevent everything.”

< _Are you sure-? >_ I ask . These are his people. I might be hesitant to fuck with time, but Noh-Varr has so much less to lose, and so much more to gain.

“You have to keep going. You can’t live in the past,” he says. It sounds final, like a gavel pounding a desk or an ancient clock striking twelve.

The younger Eli comes strolling down the steps exactly on time, and Teddy and I watch in amusement as Cassie and Noh-Varr scramble to remain unseen.

-

Teddy and I demorph and remorph behind a dumpster. I wish I could say that this is the grossest thing I have done for the cause, but after we morphed ants last month, nothing can compare.

Cassie has ditched her hipster disguise. She obviously doesn’t need it, because the yeerks aren’t looking for her here in the past, and also it makes my past-self less likely to figure out that we’re following him.

The non-morphers walk casually through the mall, silently shadowing the younger Eli, as well as Billy and Tommy, after the twins arrive several minutes later.

Teddy and I watch intermittently through sky-lights, scrambling for a clear view and unable to hear a thing.

< _Hey look, it’s Kate_! > Teddy exclaims, his beady hawk-eyes locked onto the figure of a slim brunette Korean girl animatedly trying to engage her friend in shopping, while a Latina teen- clearly America- looks on, bored and indulgent.

< _The gang’s all here_. > The weird thing about thought-speech is that it’s directed at others by its nature. My words are quiet and ironic, but no one can imagine I didn’t mean for them to hear it.

The white head of Noh-Varr and the golden waves of Cassie pass underneath us, dogging the steps of yet another familiar face: Serrure. He’s tiny, almost mouse-like from my vantage point. I didn’t realize how much he’s grown since last summer.

Yet unseen, I know that Nate is somewhere under the roof of the mall as well. Minus Noh-Varr, Teddy is the only one of us who was absent that day- spending the day with his mother on her rare day off. As the familiar events play out on mute below us, memories emerge from dusty corners of my mind and become sharper:

_Billy, his voice nervous, asking if we think Teddy likes him. Billy, antsy and self-conscious, asking me and Tommy for a distraction. Tommy’s rapid-fire text messages suggesting a list of increasingly-bizarre activities. Me, ever the mediator between the twins, deciding on the mall._

< _I see Nate_ ,> Teddy reports. He’s two skylights over, near something that I hope was once a squirrel nest.

This rooftop is gross, FYI.

I hop over, fluttering my huge black wings a bit to quicken the motion.

There’s Nate, our old friend, chatting casually with his new friends while my past-self and the twins look on in confusion.

We used to be tight. Me, Nate, and Billy were best friends since middle school. We spent hours upon hours browsing comic book shops, watching terrible dollar movies, and playing on Billy’s old Playstation in the years before Tommy and Teddy came along.

Then, something changed, and Nate stopped having time for us. This is probably the last conversation any of us had with him. I watch it unfold for the second time through a dusty window, trying to decode the exchange from gestures and facial expressions.

Billy makes the first overture, waving and calling out across the food court. Nate looks up from his conversation, and an odd expression flashed across his face: smug satisfaction? It doesn’t seem right, but my morph has great eyes. It’s only there for a minute, before Nate’s face melts into the more appropriate fondness he’s always exhibited toward the brunette twin.

Billy catches up to Nate easily, gestures with his hand back to the younger Eli and Tommy. Nate shrugs off the invitation, nodding his head to his own companions. The message is clear, even without sound: Nate’s busy, but he appreciates the invite. He leans in closer to Billy, places a hand on his arm, and smiles. I don’t remember Nate being this touchy-feely when we hung out. It almost makes me think that the budding relationship between Billy and Teddy was what chased Nate off, but that seems wrong, somehow. The gesture doesn’t seem _longing_ , but _possessive_ , somehow. Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it could even be _threatening_.

Nate pulls away, finally, after what felt like several minutes but was probably much less. He makes his apologies to Billy, nods to his friend, and leaves the food court. Billy walks back to his brother and the boy I used to be, dejected.

Nate and his friend, a blonde girl in the grade below me, make a bee-line for the door, and I take flight to beat them there. Something is up with Nate. If I can just hear him speak, maybe I can figure out what it is.

I sit, a twenty-pound bird trying to unobtrusively perch on a trashcan, and wait for him to come to me.

“-really, what’s with the hangers- on, Kang?” the blonde (Amy something?) asks Nate as he holds the door open for her.

My old friend shrugs casually. “It was a warning,” he says, as if that explains anything.

“Yeah? Well I don’t think he got it.” Maybe-Amy replies, doubtful.

“It wasn’t for the kid.”

They pass my perch without a glance, and I finally notice something on the back of Nate’s shirt: big, friendly bubble letters spelling out two words _: THE SHARING_.

There’s a whirlpool where my heart should be, so many revelations in one day having completely overcome my ability to emotionally react.

People are starting to stop and stare. Usually, if I keep my distance, my condor morph can be mistaken for the turkey vulture that’s actually native to the area. As several middle-schoolers take out their phones and try to sneak closer to me, I am uncomfortably aware that the California Condor has been extinct on this coast for decades.

I take flight before they can get any clear photos.

-

Everything happens so fast: little Serrure, who must already have Loki 645 curled around his brain, who watched the exchange between Billy and Nate with shiny, clever eyes, bounces up to my younger self and the twins. I remember thinking he seemed immature, much more child-like than the mere three years between our ages would suggest. I was annoyed, and I see it reflected in the curl of my younger self’s lips as he regards Serrue/Loki. Tommy shrugged- is shrugging, I see through plate-glass windows. He wants to leave, having exhausted his attention span for this trip. He doesn’t care if some freshman tags along on the walk home.

America and Kate join next, in a move that always confused me. Kate and Billy were sort-of friends, the kind of classmates who sat together and made jokes during class, but didn’t hang out or text outside of school. We didn’t know America at all, yet, but it was she who strolled up and told us bluntly that they were coming along. My condor eyes see her suspicious glares aimed at Serrure, and I find another mystery solved before my eyes.

Without fanfare, without formal agreement, the whole ratty group disembarks.

Just like that, the journey that changed my life begins.

-

I don’t know how to tell Teddy that Nate is a Controller. Cassie and Noh-Varr wouldn’t understand the significance of it. To them, he’s just another classmate, just another human with a yeerk in his head. To me, to Teddy and Tommy and Billy, he was one of us. To find out that he’s been the enemy for longer than we _knew_ there was an enemy?

I can’t even find the words to express how that feels. How am I supposed to tell Teddy?

Instead, we fly in silence, guiding Cassie and Noh-Varr to the Stark’s abandoned mansion by another route.

< _So this is when it all started_ ,> Teddy says. It sounds almost reverent. My stomach churns at the thought of what I’ll witness, for the second time.

< _It started when the yeerks began the invasion_ ,> I correct him. < _This is just the night we find out_. >

“I got infested three months before this,” Cassie tells us, speaking to the cool Spring air unselfconsciously.

“It’s been…” Noh-Varr trails off, trying to do the math in his head. “Years. Kree children are conscripted into the army when they’re about as old as a human nine-year old.”

< _When I was nine, I was playing Pokemon_ ,> Teddy says.

< _You still play Pokemon, >_ I point out.

< _Not so much, anymore_. >

We’re silent for a bit. None of us have a lot of time for games, and when we do have time, it’s still hard to relax.

“I didn’t realize you guys knew Nate,” Cassie says, trying to revitalize the conversation as we trek down side streets in the dying light of evening.

Maybe I won’t have to tell Teddy. Maybe I won’t get the chance.

< _He was_ …> Teddy trails off. < _Me, Eli, the twins and Nate, we were a group before all of this started. It sounds dumb now, but we were nerds, right? It kinds felt like us against the world. Then Nate drifted apart, and now-_ >

“Now it really is us against the world,” Cassie says, her smile more ironic than amused.

< _Yeah, >_ Teddy says lamely.

< _We’re here_ ,> I announce, eager to put off this conversation.

The Stark mansion tonight is an image that’s burned into my mind. Even at the time it seemed ominous, dangerous. I was convinced that something terrible was going to happen, although, granted, my fears were more like Tommy breaking his leg or Billy getting gay-bashed than witnessing an alien spacecraft landing.

The building is still mostly standing, here in the past. It’s falling apart, and it bares the burns and structural damage from the frat party that finally got the place condemned, but it looks recognizably like a house. In the dark, it might even be a nice house, the summer home of the Stark family who famously left this place to rot after they filed for bankruptcy.

Gravel shuffles in the darkness, footsteps on grass and rubble. Cassie freezes, but Noh-Varr has the presence of mind to pull her behind a wall, effectively hiding both of them. White and blonde are distinctive hair colors, even in the dim light.

“Pretty sure this isn’t a short cut. Pretty sure this is trespassing,” Billy’s voice pierces the darkness.

“Do you ever get tired of being a spoil-sport?” Tommy replies. I can’t see any better than a human in the dark, but Tommy’s bleached hair makes him easy to spot, creeping through the overgrown lawn.

“You are, indeed, the sworn enemy of all that is fun,” Loki 645 says with Serrure’s voice. It’s distinctly a Loki-sentence, not a Serrure-sentence. Sometimes I wonder how anyone who knew Serrure before could mistake Loki for him- not that we knew Serrure before, either.

“I do need to be home at some point,” my own voice points out from somewhere in the darkness. “Grandma is already on me about going out on a school night.”

“Relax,” Tommy replies. He’s probably waving a hand around, trying to placate them, he does that a lot- “This’ll only take a minute.”

“What’s that?” America asks. No one asks what she means, because a moment later, we all know. For a single instant, like lightning, the lot is brightly lit, before the darkness rolls in again. The sound of the crash has all the kids scrambling, Noh-Varr and Cassie included. Walls topple over, part of the roof caves in, and a deep furrow is gouged into the lawn where the space cruiser skidded to a stop.

I shake dust out of my feathers and check to make sure Cassie, Noh-Varr, and Teddy remain unseen. The non-morphers were thrown off their feet, but seem alright. Cassie is brushing dirt from her jeans, and seems unhurt. Teddy is circling above.

“What the hell is that?” Kate asks.

“Omg my god,” Tommy breathes.

“This can’t be happening,” Billy repeats to himself. “This can’t be happening.”

It is happening. It’s happening again.

The spaceship opens. From inside comes first a voice, then a form.

“Don’t be afraid,” she calls to us.

Then, a green creature limps out of the twisted metal pod. She’s tall and muscular, covered in green scaly skin and purple fabric. It’s funny to think that she’s not the first alien we ever met. She’s just the first alien we _knew_ we’d met. After all, we already knew Teddy.

< _I feel like I should do something, > _Teddy tells me _. <She’s the Skrull princess. She’s my people’s ruler, right?>_

 _< We’re not changing things,>_ I remind him.

“My name is Princess Anelle,” she tells the gathered kids. “And you are all in danger.”

I let her words wash over me. I already know the content: the yeerk invasion, her fleet’s demise, her own impending death, our one hope: the blue cube she holds in her arms. Instead, I focus on details I missed before: her face, focused and direct. Her voice: pushing away grief to help this tiny band of human kids resist complete annihilation. The yellow of her eyes. The smooth muscles under shining scales, so similar to Teddy’s Skrull form.

The looks on our faces, the future Animorphs: Billy, listening in horror. Tommy, growing angrier with every detail. Kate, thoughtful and solemn. America, confusion, her competent, badass persona finally slipping in the face of the unthinkable. Serrure, uncomfortable and uncertain, his eyes darting from Anelle to the other kids, to the darkness around them. I wouldn’t have guessed it then, but now I know that he knew better than any of us what waited for us out in the darkness. He knew exactly how much the yeerks didn’t want this information getting out. He knew exactly the shape and size targets Anelle was painting on our backs by telling us about the yeerks, by giving us the power to morph.

Anelle holds out the blue box, and the six kids obediently step forward. They each place a hand on the box, and it gently begins to light up, flooding the area with blue light. The kids look strange in the light, as if they are all aliens themselves.

I catch a glimpse of Noh-Varr and Cassie standing maybe twenty feet back, their faces also illuminated by the appearance of blue light.

She only has time to give them one final warning before someone else notices the light coming from the old Stark place: _never stay in morph for more than two hours, lest you be stuck forever_.

Then the first blast hits. Anelle’s spaceship explodes behind her, and the six kids freeze.

“Run,” she demands, not looking at them, and not moving her lips. They do. They scatter, jumping over rocks and crumbling statues, disappearing into the night.

The Bug Fighter hovers overhead without lights, a huge mass of black in the darkness, visible only by the lack of stars.

It fires no shots after the first. Maybe the first was a warning shot. Maybe it’s a futile attempt to remain low-key.

Several shapes drop from the yeerk ship. They’re humanoid, but that’s all I can tell until they come closer. I heard voices from my hiding place the first time around, but not clearly enough to make out the conversation. This is new to me. This, I will remember.

The leader of the yeerk invasion of Earth strolls up to the downed Skrull as if meeting an old friend in the park.

“Princess Anelle,” he says in greeting. “It’s been too long.” He smiles, his bright white teeth shining. With his Kree host’s blond hair, broad jaw and movie-star looks, you’d never know a grimy slug lurks behind blue eyes.

“Visser Three,” she spits back. “It hasn’t been long enough.”

“No need to be rude when we know each other so-” he pauses for effect- “ _intimately_.”

“You are not Captain Mar-Vell,” she tells him. “You are a parasite, a vermin. And one day, my people will exterminate you all.” She looks away from him, as if dismissing his existence as unimportant.

Visser Three talks a good game, but he’s arrogant and impatient, and Anelle must have known that, too. Visser Three trembles in anger, pulls and arm back and punches her in the face. Anelle barely reacts, and actually smiles a bit. Not many things can easily take a Kree punch, but a Skrull is one of them.

As if just realizing this, Visser Three roars in anger, a sound that was much more terrifying a year ago. Now, even knowing what comes next, part of my mind notices how pathetic Visser Three is. He was trying to banter with Anelle, got burned, and couldn’t think of something to say to save face. He’s throwing a tantrum because Anelle called him vermin.

The fact that his tantrums come with an army of blade-wielding lizard people and blaster-wielding human Controllers is what makes him dangerous.

Visser Three snatches a Dracon Beam cannon from the arms of a subordinate, and dispassionately empties the battery into Princess Anelle’s body. I flinch as the first rays hit, and take to the sky.

I wanted to know what happened, but I don’t need to see this. I don’t need to see our hero’s body disintegrated in front of me.

< _She just wanted to help us,_ > Teddy says in shock. < _She wanted to save the Earth_. >

< _We’re her legacy_ ,> I tell Teddy. < _and we’re going to make sure her gift destroys the yeerks_. >

Far below us, Visser Three stares down at the remains of Princess Anelle. He frowns, snorts, and surveys the surrounding area.

“There were others here,” he announces. “Find them. Kill them.”

The kids can’t hear him, I realize. I didn’t hear him, a year ago. They’re on the outskirts of the lawn, hiding behind bushes and fountains and ornamental statues. And if it wasn’t Visser Three that made them run, maybe it was-

< ** _RUN_** > I scream at them. Simultaneously, six kids flinch at the strength of the demand. Unfamiliar to thought-speak, they will each individually assume it to be an echo of Anelle’s last words to them. The command will sink into their brains, and one by one they will all dart from their hiding places and flee. They will run and run and they won’t stop running until either they are home or they can’t run anymore. They’ll run like the devil in on their heels.

The Controllers see the movement across the lawn, and they scurry after the indistinct shapes of six fleeing kids.

_We have to do-_

Noh-Varr leaps out from behind a tree as a human Controller passes. He easily wrestles her to the ground and takes her Dracon beam cannon.

- _something._

Noh-Varr takes aim and shoots the cannon across the lawn, not aiming at specific people so much as trying to create maximum chaos. Several controllers scatter in the wake of the blast, trying to escape the energy beam. Another Controller fires back toward Noh-Varr, sending another half-dozen Controllers running, and missing Noh-Varr completely.

“You idiots!” Visser Three screams. “What are you-“ This is about the point that I dive-bomb his face. Twenty pounds of vulture hits his face at forty miles an hour, surprising the shit out of him and distracting him from whatever order he was about to give his subordinates.

I scratch at his face with my claws, then beat my wings harder and get the hell out of there before he can grab me with Kree hands. Kree strength would snap my bones like crackers. I don’t need to be dead to be a distraction.

Teddy screeches a horrifying, shrill tone, and dive-bombs another Controller. By now everyone who isn’t dodging Dracon beams is staring up at the sky, squinting and trying to avoid attacking birds.

< _WE WILL EXTERMINATE YOU LIKE THE VERMIN YOU ARE_! > Teddy screams in public though-speech, the equivalent of broadcasting at top volume.

I think Teddy got the memo.

Every few seconds the yard is illuminated by the light of Dracon blasts, and it’s during one of these moments that I see Cassie dodge across the lawn, darting between hiding places.

This is bad. Unlike Noh-Varr, Cassie has a public identity. If the yeerks see her here, they might recognize her and take their anger out on Cassie’s past self- possibly erasing our Cassie from existence.

Condors can’t screech, so I only grunt and growl as I swoop down and rake a Controller’s head with my claws. He screams and throws himself to the ground, effectively increasing the chaos on this side of the lawn.

< _Teddy, get back and demorph_ ,> I tell him privately, < _A Skrull loose in the neighborhood should be enough of a distraction for Cassie to get away._ >

He lets out one more screech and pretends to dive-bomb a Hork-Bijar again, feinting left before he got within blade-range , before he answers.

< _On it_. >

Noh-Varr’s survived so long by luck, agility, and the fact that he looks like any other humanoid in the darkness, and the Controllers, unlike their leader, are reluctant to fire at someone who might be an ally.

His luck can’t last indefinitely.

Another Controller wielding a Dracon cannon gets close enough to lock onto him. Her host is a middle-aged woman in a skirt suit, who has at least traded her work shoes for dirty white sneakers before she came out to fight.

“Die,” she snarls as the cannon whirrs to life and fires a massive blast of energy right for Noh-Varr.

< _No_! > I scream. A few Controllers look around, trying to find the source of my voice, but other than that I am helpless.

Noh-Varr drops his own weapon and throws himself to the side, trying to avoid the worst of the blast.

My Condor nose smells burning flesh. This excites my morph’s instincts, which urge me to find the wounded animal and eat it. I want to be sickened by the thought, but the Condor’s stomach is interested rather than disgusted.

I circle in the sky above the blast, the hot air lifting me up higher than I’d like to be.

My eyes search the area for Noh-Varr’s body. He’s Kree. He’s durable. He could have survived the blast…

The harrier finds him first. This is how the condor mind sees it:

_A much smaller bird dives past me. I think about reaching out a talon and ripping it out of the air, but there is death and injury below me, and food is plentiful, so I don’t bother._

_It dives down, down, down, toward the burning-meat smell. It pulls out of the dive ten feet above the ground, and as it slows, it changes. It grows, contorts, mutates._

_It drops like a stone those last few feet, and what lands on the dirt is a huge green scaled creature, something that smells more like a lizard than anything else, but not by much._

Teddy snarls at the surrounding controllers, and the sight of a full-grown Skrull is intimidating enough that several back away in fear.

Noh-Varr’s body moves. He tries to push himself up, but falls back down. Teddy curls his body over top of him, looking like some sort of humanoid dinosaur protecting his young.

I hear Cassie scream. I fold my wings and drop from the sky, scaring the hell out of the Controller who had her arms wrapped around Cassie’s neck. I land on the woman’s back and begin pecking at her face, which is enough to make even the most loyal yeerk let go.

Cassie falls to the ground, holding her throat and breathing deeply.

< _You ok? >_ I ask worriedly.

“I hate this. I want to go _home_!” she croaks.

<Yeah, me too,> I answer.

She lifts herself out of the dirt, and for a moment I think I see something bright and blue shine in the debris by her feet, then-

**_Leaving so soon?_ **

Thought-speech sounds like a voice in your head, but this was more than that. This was a concept that repeated several times, from different angles, as if echoing. This came from everywhere, from within, from outside, from myself. This was loud and overpowering, but felt like a whisper in the dark.

As soon as the words faded from my mind, we were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of changing the summary to something that better represents the story as a whole.
> 
> If you'd like to weight in and help me decide, see [my post about this](http://doesntafraid.tumblr.com/post/106875666978/for-anyone-reading-my-young-avengers-animorphs) on tumblr.


	8. The Trip, Part Two: Tommy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other half of the team find themselves somewhere impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Animorphs _The Stranger_ and Young Avengers _Children's Crusade One-Shot_.

The transition has a dreamlike quality to it; we’re in the air, a flock of pigeons on a secret mission, and then we aren’t. I’m not surprised to find myself standing on the wet grass, but I also don’t know how we got here.

It’s dark out, now, and at first I just wonder where the day went, kind of like when you walk home on auto-pilot and are surprised to find yourself at your own doorstep when the last time you looked up you were somewhere else entirely.

It’s the sounds that clue me in. Living in a city, you get used to a certain kind of background noise: the sounds of traffic, mostly, but also the sounds of business and a lot of people living in close proximity. You get people talking on cellphones, car alarms, the ‘ding’ of the bells on small shop doors and the ‘whoosh’ of automatic doors on larger stores. Even the occasional street-preacher or performance artist, depending on where you are in the city.

Here, the sounds are different. There aren’t any bird sounds here. No pigeons. No cars, either, and that’s even weirder. Instead, there’s a soft whirring, like the kind you hear when the air-conditioner is on indoors.

The others are freaked out, too.

What’s more, a quick glance around tells me that we haven’t moved far- we’re just standing on the sidewalk instead of gliding in the air above it. This is the same street Loki 645 felt drawn to, however long ago that was.

All down this block are small organic shops and renovated townhouses, ending the street at that old mansion where everything began.

“Where are the buildings?” Kate whispers. I’m not sure what she means at first; the houses are still right where we left them, all standing in a row with their manicured lawns- but no. I look again and notice that they’ve fallen into disrepair. The harsh light of the streetlamps reveals that paint is peeling in places, and there’s mold growing under the front step.

I look further, and realize what Kate is looking at.

The skyline is all wrong.

Where’s the giant bank building with the flashing lights on top? Where’s the high-rise apartments of downtown? Where’s Stark Tower and all of the hotels?

They should all be visible, even this late at night. When I’m out after sunset, I use the neon lighted signs to orient myself and find my way home.

 I can’t see any of them. There don’t seem to be any buildings here taller than two stories.

Except-

There’s one tower jutting into the sky, an inky black tooth sticking up against the muddy, gray background.

It’s gotta be at least thirty stories high, and the lighted windows form seven columns on each side, except the top five floors, which form horizontal rows. The Baxter Building.

It was built in the seventies to be ‘the pinnacle of modern engineering’ or some shit, but now it looks sinister, intimidating.

The air is cold and dry. I can almost feel my lips begin to chap.

A figure moves in the darkness.

They’re wearing dark, de-saturated clothes, so I don’t so much see them as see the absence of a lighter color when they move past a mailbox or fencepost. I look to my brother, who nudges Kate, and we all sink backwards into shadow.

The stranger steps too close to a streetlight, and I catch a glimpse of their face. It’s familiar, something about the nose or the cheekbones- it’s hard to say with such a bad angle.

Without really thinking, I creep along the road, trying to catch another glimpse.

There’s a hissing sound behind me. I glance back, and see the faint outlines of my friend’s heads in the dark of the alley, but nothing dangerous. I continue shadowing the stranger.

Whoever-it-is knows the area well, better than I do. They have no trouble creeping around, confident in their every step and never making a sound. I’m pretty quiet myself, but I hold back a wince every time I step wrong on the grass, resulting in small wet crunching noises.

Whoever is behind me is even less quiet.

The stranger stops in the empty lot in front of the Stark house. It was the summer home of some alcoholic celebrity, once, but bad business practices caused the old man to lose his fortune and here the mansion sits now, empty and dilapidated. No one ever bought it, so it just fell into disrepair. It’s been condemned, set on fire, put up for sale, and criticized in a million ‘Save the Neighborhood’ campaigns, but no one ever quite managed to do away with it.

Then there was the explosion, and well-

It hardly looks like a house, anymore.

Anyway, the weirdly familiar guy is slinking from shadow to shadow like a poorly-dressed James Bond.  From tree to half-crumbling fountain to part of a wall to one weird lump of what might have been part of the building or might have been an uprooted drainpipe.

I’m not sure why I’m following at this point, because yeah, this person is familiar, but so is everything on the street. Everything is just this side of deja-vu, uncanny- they look like things I know, but the details are different enough to throw me off.

I stop three hiding places behind the stranger, leaving me crouched awkwardly behind a dead tree, my hands braced against the trunk to keep me leaning just out of sight.

“Tommy,” a voice hisses in my ear, and I flinch, whirl around, and punch my brother in the nose.

“Shit, fuck,” I curse. “Why would you sneak up on me like that?”

“Fuck, come on Tommy,” he sputters.

“We’ve been following you the whole time,” Serrure says, one eyebrow raised and sounding as sardonic as he ever has, “And it’s not like America really does stealth.”

Sure enough, Kate and America are there, squatting next to Billy and Serrure, looking more like a bunch of nerds trying to plan out a pick-up game of football than a secret battalion of guerilla warriors.

America shrugs and doesn’t seem insulted. “These shoes aren’t made for sneaking,” she says.

Was that a pun? I think America made a pun.

I stare at her, and she stares back, as if daring me to mention it.

“Shut up,” Kate demands, and physically reaches out to turn my head back in the other direction. “Look!”

The creepy figure-guy has been joined by several others: human-shaped (and what is my life, that I have to specify that?) We’re not that close to them, but the night is quiet and the wind is favorable, and their words somehow make it to our tree-hideout.

“How d---------- s here?” a tall, thin brunette man demands. The angry hiss of his voice actually makes it easier to hear him, the sharp sound traveling further than normal speech.

I can’t hear the creepy stranger’s reply, but the movement of his shoulders is familiar. It’s so dark and so far away that watching this conversation is like watching a black-and-white television from across the room at a party. Most of what I can make out is inferred from body language and a smattering of words.

The new group is unhappy with the creepy-stranger. They want to know why he’s here. He shrugged off the question, and seems mostly unperturbed by their anger and (if I’m right) threats of violence.

“What do you think they’re doing here?” Billy whispers behind me. Serrure, who is leaning on the tree to my right, shrugs in response.

It’s a very familiar movement.

A memory plucks at my mind, like an impatient child on a guitar string: repeatedly striking the same note, as if hoping that a song will spontaneously flow from it.

Something about that motion…

The creepy stranger is gesturing around, as if talking about the whole area around us. One of the other strangers- a muscular woman holding a Dracon beam gun- shakes her head and thinks he’s full of shit.

There’s a rustling of feathers, and I look up to see a peregrine falcon perched high above me in the tree. I look at it. It looks at me.

The string in my head is plucked harder.

“Oh shit,” I mutter, right before a Dracon beam pierces the air beside me.

Serrure was apparently quicker on the uptake than I was, because he’s already vacated his position, throwing himself out of the way and into Kate.

I try to run and trip over America, and we all land in a heap on the muddy grass.

Some elite fighting force we are.

There’s the quiet beeping of a Dracon beam re-charging, and I throw my arms into the air.

“It’s not what it looks like!” I call out, in the hopes of at least making our attackers pause.

I’m not sure what it looks like, or what we’re actually doing. It’s entirely possible that it _is_ what it looks like.

“If you’re supposed to be impersonating us, you’re about ten years out of date,” a man says. I look up into the face of a guy who could be Eli’s older brother. I’d say that he could be Eli’s dad, but I’ve seen pictures, and Eli’s actual father looks less like him than this stranger does.

The string plucks again, and breaks.

“Eli?”

It could just as easily have been my voice to puncture the night, but this time it’s Kate’s.

“Is that Eli?” she asks again. I don’t see how it could be, except that I’ve come to the same conclusion.

“This is ridiculous,” I complain to the world at large. “Completely nuts.”

The other strangers come closer, and I recognize their faces in turn: Kate and America. The stranger we followed is a taller, older Serrure who smiles like he used to and puts me in mind of domesticated cats: they seem tame, and they tend to like humans, but they’re still predators. They still play with their food. The peregrine falcon above us is identical to my own bird morph, the man who was yelling at Serrure is-

“Nate?” I wonder.

He doesn’t smile at me.

“We know our names have been leaked,” he tells us. “For yeerks, you’re terrible actors.”

“What year is it?” Kate asks, because she’s straightforward like that. Nate ignores her.

“Tell us what you’re doing in this lot, and I’ll let you slither out of your host’s ear before I vaporize you,” Nate says instead.

“Uh, we followed Serrure,” I reply, hands still raised in the air.

(“He’s _not_ Serrure,” the older America spits.)

“Not _you_ ,” the older Eli rolls his eyes, and moves his own Dracon beam gun in a similar motion. “We couldn’t care less what a bunch of rank-less yeerk grubs are doing sneaking around after curfew. What is _Visser One_ doing here? Is it experiments again? What’s he trying to accomplish?”

“Uh…” I can hear Billy trying to reason with them, but my mind is already several leaps ahead.

The future?

“How come I’m the only one in morph?” sometimes I don’t think before I speak. This is one of those times.

 _< Because I’m a _nothlit _, genius,_ > the peregrine falcon says to us, < _trapped in morph_. >

For once, even I’m shocked into silence. When Princess Anelle warned us against staying in any animal morph for more than two hours, I listened, but it didn’t really seem real. I wasn’t scared of it. It wasn’t until later, after I had limbs ripped off and feathers scorched and flesh sliced open that the nightmares came.

The morph is always different, whatever I’ve acquired most recently. I’m facing down Visser Three, tall and blond and smiling through his Kree host. Suddenly he’s right in front of me, and he pulls his leg up and crushes me into the floor. I struggle and scream, and I try to demorph, to heal the damage, but I can’t. I’m stuck in morph.

Then I wake up.

This version of me, he can’t wake up. He’s stuck in the nightmare.

“The future sucks.”                                                                                                               

“This isn’t the future,” Nate barks, “You aren’t from the past! You’re a bunch of yeerks with morph-capable hosts who have a terrible sense of humor and no instinct for self-preservation.”

“Come on, Nate,” my brother urges, “We used to be friends. Remember the night that you, me, Teddy, and Eli went walking downtown at midnight? It started storming, and you started talking about how lightening works, and Eli said-“

“That doesn’t prove anything!” Nate yells. He’s furious- I don’t know Nate as well at the other guys do, but I remember the few times we hung out. When he gets mad, he gets quiet, gets cold. I’m not sure what it means that he’s yelling like this. “-So you ripped a memory from Teddy’s mind. Do you want a medal? Did you think that we’d be so grateful to see our friends alive and healthy again that we’d just forget that you infested him? I look into my _friend’s_ face every time I meet Visser One. You spineless, heartless slugs don’t seem to get that.”

“Teddy’s-?” Billy and me are identical twins, but we didn’t grow up together. One consequence of that is I never got used to having a carbon copy of myself walking around. Billy’s voice is quiet, and filled with horror. It takes me a moment to realize that his voice isn’t my own.

“This can’t be real,” Serrure whispers from behind us.

“We used to play Magic together.” Billy’s voice is tired, but matter-of-fact. “We met in middle school, before Teddy or Tommy came along. We were in the same first period class, and we both would get dropped off early. We’d hide our decks in our backpacks and play Magic: The Gathering together every day before school started.” He looks Nate in the eye, defiantly. My brother is a teenager, and this version of Nate is an adult, and it shows in their height difference, in the lines on Nate’s face, in the way Billy looks like a kid standing up to an especially mean gym teacher. “Would the yeerks know that?”

“There were a dozen other kids in that class,” Nate answers, “and all of them are either Controllers or dead.” Instead of being angry or triumphant, he just sounds bitter now.

“Ok, great. Someone think of a way to prove one way or another who these kids are, because this is just getting depressing.” The older Kate doesn’t surprise me at all, actually. She’s tall, and slightly annoyed, and has her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. So, pretty much how I imagined Kate would look in a few years. The morphing power pretty much prevents any of us from accumulating any scars (and actually healed all of the ones we had beforehand- weird.), so she looks more like a professional athlete than a soldier.

< _Tommy, the first girl we kissed- go_. > the bird says.

“Uh, well-“ I stammer. “There was Sarah in fifth grade, but I don’t think-“

< _It’s us_. > my future self confirms. That jerk.

“While this reunion of Earth’s Mightiest Defenders is _fascinating_ , we might want to take it somewhere that isn’t heavily monitored by the Yeerk Empire,” Serrure’s future self suggests.

To my surprise, Future Kate turns on him.

“ _You_ do not get a vote,” she hisses. “ _You_ are not a part of this team.”

“Hey, that’s a little harsh,” our Kate objects. She and Serrure have been weird friends recently. I think they’re bonding over being the disappointing children of high-profile rich people.

“And after _all_ the information I’ve given you,” the older Serrure agrees with a pout. “At great personal risk to myself, might I add.”

“No,” Future Kate replies. “We should slit your lying little throat.”

Older Serrure starts to say something else, but Kate isn’t done:

“He’s a traitor, FYI. A Controller.” She turns to glare at our Serrure, the little brave fourteen year old. “Yours is, too.”

The older Serrure (or Loki 645?) pouts once more and crosses his arms.

“I’m not,” our Serrure says, calmly.

“I am,” Billy says. He sounds as surprised to hear his own voice as I am, but not, like, horrified. I’m pretty sure it was Billy saying it, not Loki 645. Despite using the same vocal chords, they really do sound different. “I mean, I’m Loki 645’s host now. We have an agreement.”

“Shouldn’t you know that?” America accuses the older Animorphs. “If this is supposed to be our future, how come you think Serrure is still infested? How come you don’t remember time traveling when you were our age?”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works-“ Future Serrure/Loki 645 begins. Nate interrupts.

“Billy’s a Controller?”

“We prefer Symbiote,” Loki 645 says with a fake self-deprecating smile. It’s weird how ze can do that with Billy’s face. I wonder if my face can do that.

“We prefer all of you yeerks fucking _dead_ ,” Eli retorts. Future Nate and Future Eli are perfect for each other. No wonder this Nate somehow joined the Animorphs.

“Ok, we really don’t have time for this. We’ll deal with the kids later,” Future Kate says, “Remember the mission.”

The other Tommy takes flight at Kate’s command, his feathered body quickly disappearing into the darkness. I don’t know what he expects to see; I’ve been in that morph more times than I can count, and it has shit night vision.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to be here, staring at what he’s lost.

-Or maybe he’s hungry and looking to find some rats, who knows?

“What mission?” our Kate asks. Older Kate looks mostly like a ripped, body-builder version of Kate’s older sister, so watching them have a conversation isn’t as strange as I expected. What is strange is how young Kate looks beside her future self. I guess we look at Kate and Eli as if they’re so much older than the rest of us, but they’re just kids, not adults. Kate _looks_ like a teenager, all gangly limbs and awkward angles next to her adult self.

Nate gives us a look like he doesn’t want to tell us, but I guess even he has to concede that we are really the Animorphs at this point.

“We’ve been getting a bunch of weird energy readings coming from the empty lot. It’s been repeating over the past few days. We wanted to figure out if the yeerks were messing around here- maybe experimenting with Gamma radiation again, or repairing their Z-space drives.” He eyes Billy suspiciously. “Or maybe fucking with the timestream.”

Before Billy can defend himself (or Loki can defend him, or anyone can do anything, really) a pair of blue searchlights flood the area.

We freeze, and scatter.

I’m halfway into my falcon morph before I realize that’s a terrible idea, and reverse it.

Someone hiding behind the crumbling wall to my left whispers, “a Bug Fighter.”

I look up. Sure enough, that’s a yeerk spaceship hovering above us, shining blue lights into the crumbling ruins of Stark Manor, ready to shoot Dracon cannons and fry all of us alive.

Footsteps patter and crunch through the darkness as a well-organized search party, presumably each with their own yeerk slug lurking behind their eyes, combs the area.

Then, a heavier set of steps. Because I have no impulse control, I chance a glimpse around my mound of debris to see who it is.

Oh. It’s Teddy.

Or- I think it’s Teddy. He’s the only Skrull I’ve ever seen, other than Princess Anelle, but it sure as hell looks like him. Huge, bigger than an NFL quarterback, with a thick, green, scaly hide. He looks pissed.

I dart back behind the debris.

“Comb the area. Start from the west side and move east. I want that Cube found tonight!”

< _Cube_? > Kate asks via thought-speak. She’s smart, I guess she’s already morphed something. I hope she has the presence of mind to limit her question’s reach to only us, and not yell it out into the world.

I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I hope he doesn’t find it. Teddy’s voice sounds annoyed and determined, like he’s already decided to rip off the heads of whoever gets in his way.

“Teddy?” Billy hisses. I’m not sure where he’s hiding, and I bite down the urge to tell him to stay quiet. It’d be kind of counter-productive.

< _No. Kang 991. That’s Visser One_ ,> my future-self informs us, from wherever it is he’s lurking.

“Visser One?” Billy whispers again. I wish he’d just morph and use thought-speak if he insists on having this conversation. “Not Visser Three?”

 _< Visser is a military title for yeerks,> _Future Me tells us, < _Don’t you guys know anything? The yeerk you’re fighting in 2014 is third from the top of the hierarchy. He’s dead now; we killed him. This guy- Kang 991- isn’t even in the running back where you came from. He only earned his stripes by infesting Teddy. >_

‘This has been a lecture on Yeerk Military history, by Tommy S,’ I think to myself. Damn, all of my best lines occur to me when I can’t say them.

< _This is where Princess Anelle_ …> Kate manages to trail off in thought-speak. Impressive. < _Is he looking for the morphing cube? >_

The situation is looking worse and worse for us, so I give up on monitoring the Controller’s search and concentrate on my falcon morph. So what if I can’t see well? I can’t see shit with human eyes, either.

I’m two feet tall and covered in feathers when America yells and something heavy crashes to the ground. I hear someone grunt in pain, someone older and masculine, and I hope it’s not Nate or Eli. Not much I can do, though, so I finish the morph and take off. A human figure bolts through the ruins below me, and they’re easy to see because they’re holding a glowing, electric blue cube in their hands like a football player looking to score.

It’s gotta be America, unless one of the Controllers is wearing a red t-shirt and a jean jacket.

She hops over what’s left of a kitchen counter, and a minute later a giant white swan emerges from her hiding spot, clutching the blue box awkwardly with its webbed feet. It swoops past me into the night sky, and I follow.

Below us, dozens of human-Controllers point and chatter to one another. Somewhere among them is one of my best friends, held captive by a yeerk. That’s becoming a familiar problem in my life.

A Dracon beam pierces the air to my right, so close that my flight feathers are almost scorched. That’s becoming uncomfortably familiar, too.

I bank left, then up. I can’t see much, but I see the clouds, dark grey things that hang low in the air. It’ll rain soon. There’s a storm coming, if we’re still here to see it.

I pump my wings harder, trying to reach the cloud cover before the yeerk weapons fry my wings right off.

Flapping your wings all the way to the clouds sucks, by the way. Falcons don’t generally do it, preferring to ride with the wind currents and let the drafts of warm air do the work.

Falcons don’t generally have to escape beams of hot plasma, either, so as far as I’m concerned they can kiss my ass.

I strain my muscles to get higher, higher. The air around me is full of birds- America as the swan to my left, a condor to my right, a couple hawks, two magpies and an owl that must be either America’s double or Eli. The Dracon beams shoot through the sky all around us, and the air is full of the smell of burnt feathers. I don’t have time to see who we’ve lost. I pump my wings, and keep my falcon-eyes fixed on the clouds.

I’m so fixated that the burst of cold, wet air takes me by surprise as I slip into the cloud.

Another peregrine falcon is up here with me, circling lazily.

< _Hey losers_ ,> older Tommy taunts. < _Can’t catch me! >_ and with that, he darts off, flying parallel to the clouds.

A few seconds later, a beam of hot plasma shoots through the darkness, and that’s all the motivation I need. I fly after him, and in my peripheral vision I see several other winged shapes do the same.

The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on the planet. We can reach speeds of over 200 miles per hour during dives, and cruising along the sky like this, we can do 80, 90 mph, easy. The older me isn’t even approaching our top speed, and I catch up easily.

 _< Getting slow in your old age?_> I ask.

< _Hardly_ ,> he shoots back. < _Can’t let the snails lose our trail! >_

I don’t look back. It’s hard to do that while flying, and I’d like to stay in the air for at least as long as the yeerk are looking for us. Instead, I just imagine the others struggling to keep up, America’s great white wings flapping with gusto, Billy’s red-shouldered hawk and Kate’s goshawk bodies gliding smoothly through the air.

It’s a great image. Flying is awesome.

We have a long way to go, and I let myself relax into the flight, letting the falcon instincts take over, doing the subtle work of shifting muscles and compensating for gusts of air and changes in humidity.

It’s a dark night, and my small bird body is cold, but all I have to do is follow the other falcon to safety.

-

The stars look different to a falcon’s eye, but that must be how he’s navigating. We can’t see much else. Maybe if we were beneath the clouds we could see the lights of the city, but then we’d be in sight of the Blade Ship, and I like my feathers the way they are: intact.

< _Sound off, >_ Eli’s voice rings through my little bird head. < _Who’s here with us? >_

We all chorus our presence in each other’s mind.

Both Kates, both Americas, Eli, Serrure, Billy/Loki 645, and (to my surprise) Nate are all here with us.

< _Who got hit_? > one of the Kates asks. It’s harder to tell the difference between them in thought-speak. I wonder if the older Tommy and I are as difficult to differentiate. I know Billy and I sound nothing alike in our heads; your thought-voice isn’t determined by genetics, but by the way your mind feels, or something like that.

Kate’s voice, both of them, feel strong and flexible, like a bowstring.

< _It’s gotta be Loki/Serrure/the Controller_ > the other Kate answers. Thought-speak is funny. It’s directly translated from the language of our thoughts, so sometimes if you’re not concentrating, ambiguities slip in and you send out a lump of feelings and ideas instead of words. Kate’s sent worry and old, faded betrayal. I’m still not sure which Kate this is.

< _Are they going to be ok?_ > Billy sends frantically.

< _Loki’s a good flier, I’m sure they’ll make it to safety and demorph_ ,> Serrure says. This is the first he’s spoken in awhile, and I’m almost surprised to remember he’s with us.

< _He knows better than to follow us home, anyway_ ,> Nate says. I wonder what morph he’s in. I wonder how he got the morphing power at all. Maybe this isn’t our future, maybe it’s another world where Nate walked home with us through the abandoned building that night. Maybe this Nate has always been an Animorph.

We follow Tommy for a little less than an hour. Without Noh-Varr to narrate how long we’ve been in morph, I’m not sure exactly how long it took. We land at the outskirts of the city, in an abandoned suburb that looks like it barely survived a bomb going off. We land in the front lawn of one of the most-destroyed homes, and immediately demorph.

The air smells like rotting leaves, and the lights from downtown stain the night sky a cloudy gray color. I watch the others land and morph, a mismatched flock of birds bulging and twisting until they more closely resemble humans.

The skyline is flattened here, too.

The older Animorphs immediately morph rodents, and we follow their lead without question. The strange group of rats, mice, and shrew scurry through the wreckage into a small exposed pipe, and after a short pause, as if to say ‘are we really doing this?’ we all do, too.

The pipe is a straight shot down into the ground at about a 30 degree angle. It lets out in a small subterranean room. The older Animorphs demorph once more, and someone pulls the string of a single exposed lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Eli unlocks a dusty trapdoor inset into the ceiling, letting in a small pile of dirt and the feathered form of the older me.

This must have been an unfinished basement when the house was still standing. Now, I guess, it’s the home base of the resistance.

“How come Nate can morph now?” I ask as soon as I have lips again, because I have no filter and being intimidated by these older Animorphs is just going to encourage them.

“Where am _I_ , anyway?” Billy asks his question almost simultaneously with mine.

“Dead,” the older America says bitterly

“America!” older Kate yells.

“What?” she demands.

Kate looks at Billy in apology, then shrugs and agrees. “Dead.”

“Did the yeerks take your tact, too, or-?” our America asks.

“Sorry if I’m not very polite,” America says, with absolutely no sincerity. “I don’t get much practice when we’re all trying not to die.”

“No, seriously, when did Nate become an Animorph?” I reiterate. “Last I checked he wasn’t even talking to us anymore!”

“We shouldn’t tell them anything else, should we?” the older Kate asks, “If they’re really from the past, we could fuck up the timestream or destroy the world or something.”

“I don’t think they’re from _our_ past, so it probably doesn’t matter,” Eli argues, “Billy died free, and we didn’t find out about Serrure for like, _years_.” He gets a familiar glint in his eye, and I know he’s got a plan. “They could stay here and help against the yeerks. Five more morph-capable fighters could really change the game for us.”

“They’re going back,” Nate says, with an air of finality. “They’re going back, so they can fix the mistakes we made.” He directs the next sentence at Billy and America, “You’re going to win the War, like we couldn’t.”

< _Good plan_ ,> my counterpart says, ruffling his feathers. < _And how do you plan to send them back in time, again?_ >

“Don’t we get a say in-“ Billy tries to say. He’s interrupted.

“This isn’t their responsibility. They have their own war to fight,” the older America agrees.

“If they go back, we’re still stuck here in this shithole,” Eli says. “We don’t know if they can change things. Maybe their future will be even worse. They can do real good here!”

Our America runs her fingers against the side of the blue box she’s still clutching in her hands. “No offense, but your future sucks. I want to go home.”

The box falls to the floor, and-

-without transition, without fanfare, the grimy basement base of the future Animorphs is gone.

The sun is just setting. The townhouses look picturesque, the dying sunlight painting the white and tan walls in pinks and oranges. The air smells like wet grass.

We’re in the empty lot next to the remains of Stark Mansion again, but everything feels different.

The skyline is back.

We’re home.


	9. The Kandrona Mission, Part Three: Serrure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs take a moment to process the events of the last two chapters, then press on in their goal: to destroy the Kandrona generator and chase the yeerks out of their city.

“You’ll never believe what we saw when we were out looking for the Kandrona thing yesterday!” Tommy says as soon as the Warehouse door is closed. I guess we should just be glad he kept it in this long- he’s been especially twitchy all day at school, giving me Significant Glances every time we passed each other in the hallway. I’m pretty sure a couple of my classmates think we must be secretly dating.

“Tommy, I don’t care if you ran into Idris Elba, we-“ Teddy starts to say. Tommy bends and breaks under the strain of not telling anyone all day, and interrupts him almost immediately.

“We went to the future and almost got killed. I was awesome.” His eyes are wide and he’s making elaborate gestures. I press a hand to my face. “Well, actually it was really shitty and I think half of us were dead,” Tommy continues, “But it was still kind of awesome.”

“We went to the past,” Teddy says. “We followed Eli around and saw Princess Anelle crash-land into the Stark house.”

“Ok, that can’t be a coincidence,” Kate mutters. She’s right. We followed Billy and Loki into… whatever it was. There was that feeling, that energy pulling us in.

“This is going to sound weird, but did any of you feel a buzzing before you got pulled into the past?” Billy asks.

Teddy, Cassie, and Eli look at Billy like they’re concerned for his health, but Noh-Varr nods emphatically. Actually, he looks a little stiff, as if he’s trying to avoid aggravating a sore muscle. I consider asking him about it, but then he starts talking:

“I thought it might be the Kandrona. But if you felt it too, maybe we were somehow sensing a rip in the timestream?”

“I like how we’re talking about rips in the timestream as if that’s a thing that happens,” Teddy says.

“Yeah, if people could just walk through into the past, you’d think it would occasionally happen to people who can’t morph into animals,” Kate agrees.

“Maybe it does, and no one believes them,” Billy says quietly.

“So, anyway,” Eli opens. “I was watching the group of us at the mall right before everything started, and I saw Nate acting weird,” Eli stops and looks to Billy, Teddy, and Tommy in turn. “Look, I think Nate’s a Controller.”

Uh. I think I might have left some important details out of my description of the Yeerk Peace Movement.

“He can’t be,” Teddy says immediately. “He’s our age, why would the yeerks-“ apparently realizing why this is a stupid objection, Teddy cuts himself off. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look at Cassie. He doesn’t look at Billy. “I- nevermind.”

“He had a Sharing shirt on and his buddy was calling him some weird yeerk name,” Eli continues. “If he wasn’t a Controller then, he probably is by now.”

“Vision 002,” I say. Eli looks at me blankly. “The yeerk name. It was Vision 002, wasn’t it.” I say with certainty.

“I don’t think so,” Eli answers. “I think I heard ‘Kang’ something.”

Well that’s... unexpected. “Well, it’s Vision now. They’re in the Yeerk Peace Movement.”

I’m met with looks of horror and surprise.

“And you didn’t think to tell us?” Tommy demands, his voice high and alarmed.

I just shrug. “I didn’t know you knew him. You want to know all of their names?”

Cassie raises her hand, as if she’s in class. “I knew Nate was infested, too. We joined the Sharing together last year. Uh, I didn’t really want to think about him, recently, and I thought you guys knew.”

Eli looks kind of betrayed by the hesitant, guilty tone in Cassie’s voice. I wonder if they all know Karolina, too.

“Look, we can’t do anything about Nate right now,” Kate tells us. “But I’ve got something more important: the location of the Kandrona.”

“Wait, when did this happen?” Tommy asks. “I was with you the whole time. Did older Kate tell you?”

“No, I figured it out. Something was bothering me about the city layout in the future. The Kandrona is big and important, right? Well the entire city was like, _leveled_ except for the Baxter building, so I’m guessing something pretty important must be kept there.”

“-Like Visser Three,” Cassie suggests. Privately, I agree. It’s not like the yeerks have a shortage of important stuff they want to hide. Their whole existence is hidden. Why not have offices for yeerk high command, or secret Bug Fighter hangers, or experimental weapons up there? It doesn’t have to be the Kandrona.

“-or, like the lifeblood of the yeerk empire,” Kate finishes. “We can at least send Billy up there to see if Loki senses anything.”

Billy doesn’t seem excited about this.

He knows how reluctant Loki has been surrounding this mission. He knows it’ll be like pulling teeth to get Loki to help at all, and then like herding cats trying to get zir to stick to the plan.

If I know Loki 645, ze already has three contingency plans to stop the mission in its tracks.

This plan _has_ to work if we want to do more than play catch-up to the yeerks. Something has to change if we don’t want that future I saw to come to pass.

And, well. I _do_ know Loki.

-

We plan the mission for the next day, partially because it’s already pretty late, partially because we all still need to process this whole we-just-travelled-in-time thing, and partially because Kate has archery practice and doesn’t want to get yelled at by her coach for ditching again.

I’m not sure how she’s managed to hold onto something so normal for so long, but apparently her coach is about as much of a flake as she is, so it’s usually pretty easy for her to get away with being late, leaving early, showing up looking like death, or not showing up at all.

We’ll be flying out to the Baxter building Friday night, so I make sure to catch Billy beforehand, at school when none of the others are around.

When I first duck into the boys’ bathroom on the second floor, Billy is standing at a urinal.

Even though he has an alien brain slug watching his life 24/7 and I’m about to give him an ultimatum, I feel like listening to him pee is too much of an intrusion, so I shut the door again and wait in the hall until I’m sure he’s done.

I ease the door open slowly. The sound of the sink running is a relief. I slip in and glance around. Billy’s at the sink. No one else at the urinals. I stalk over to the two stalls and look under the dividers- one pair of dirty Chucks. Someone else is in here.

“Oh Billy,” I say loudly, “I hope no one is in here to witness our ILLICIT GAY AFFAIR!”

“Serrure-“ Billy begins.

The guy in the stall bursts out, fingers stuck in his ears.

“I can’t hear anything!” he announces. It’s Chase, a ‘super-senior’ who’s taking 12th grade over for the second time. He drives to school in an old busted window-less white van, and I’m pretty sure he sells weed behind the gym. “I didn’t see anything!” he continues as he leaves the room.

In the stall behind him, a sad soggy joint floats in the toilet bowl.

“Serrure, what the fuck?” Billy demands. He has his hands covering his face. “Now everyone’s going to think- Oh god, and Teddy-!”

“I need to talk to Loki 645.”

Billy puts his hands down, but looks uncertain.

“You guys aren’t supposed to be in the same room,” he says slowly.

“That was my call. Now I’m making a different decision.”

“And you couldn’t have used a phone or done this in literally any other way?” Billy asks.

“It worked.”

Billy has to admit that it did.

“Look, I know it’s your choice, but are you sure you want to do this?” Billy asks. He and Tommy both make the same face when they’re confused: his nose is scrunched up, one eyebrow is pressed down close to his eye while the other rises and creates wrinkles in his forehead. It’s not a _Loki_ expression. I feel confident I’m talking to the human, and not the yeerk.

“I need to do this,” I tell Billy. I know he’ll probably interpret that as some emotional decision. Maybe he’ll think I have to clear the air or get closure or something.

No, this is something much simpler, and more pressing.

Billy reluctantly hands control over to Loki 645.

Ze looks at me like a dog waiting to be hit, which isn’t very fair. It’s not like _I’m_ the one who stole _zir_ life.

“You have to take this mission seriously,” I tell zir.

Loki looks away, refusing to meet my eyes. “I’m in a bad position, here,” ze says. “What do you want from me?”

I know exactly what position Loki is in. I know what this will cost zir, and I’m finally calling in zir debt.

“You have to do this,” I repeat. “You have to do this for Don.”

Billy’s face freezes. Loki’s usually much better at keeping zir cool, so I must have really caught zir off-guard.

“The yeerks were trying to take over the hospital. Don’t you think they’re going to try again? Don’t you think they’ll be infesting doctors and interns and hospital staff?” Loki juts out Billy’s jaw and stares at a fixed point on the bathroom wall. “Even if he isn’t taken at the hospital, how long do you think it will take for his time to come?”

Loki doesn’t answer.

“Loki?” I demand.

“They won’t take Don,” Loki says quietly. “He’s not what they want in a host.”

“And what do yeerks do with people unworthy of being hosts?” I ask. It’s rhetorical. I don’t actually know what they do, but I know that Loki must, and I bet it’s bad.

“They won’t take Don,” Loki 645 says again.

“No,” I agree. “They won’t. Because you’re going to help us save the city.” Loki finally meets my gaze and glares at me through Billy’s hazel eyes.

“You’re asking me to kill thousands of yeerks,” ze says, “Including myself.”

“I’m asking you to help me save Don. To help stop the yeerk invasion.” Loki doesn’t respond. “If the yeerks didn’t want us to fight back, they shouldn’t have come to Earth.”

“I should have guessed it would come to this,” Loki 645 says, almost to zirself. “Turnabout is fair play, right?”

“You owe me this,” I say instead.

“And after?” Loki says sharply. “After this, if I survive, will this be the norm? Do I do your bidding now?”

“If you do this,” I tell Loki (and, by proxy, Billy), “You can come to meetings again. After this is over, maybe one day you’ll even earn my trust.”

This is a dirty trick, and I know it.

But then again, all of my dirtiest tricks come from Loki 645, and I can’t think of a better way to use them than to save the world.

-

That afternoon finds all of the Animorphs (plus Noh-Varr and Cassie, who can’t morph, and Loki 645, who, as usual, is present in Billy’s head) loitering around downtown.

Noh-Varr has a knit hat slipped over his white hair, and Cassie is dressed in what Teddy insists on calling her “hipster disguise”, but the rest of us are in our usual street clothes.

She and Noh are going to be our lookouts, scouting out the inside of the Baxter Building while the rest of us search through the areas visible through windows.  After the last few missions, Kate and Eli are pretty confident that the search for Cassie has let off, and that none of the Controllers have a firm idea of what Noh-Varr looks like out of his Kree soldier uniform. Still, they’re our only non-morphers, so they get low key non-combat roles. They don’t have thought-speech, and we won’t be able to carry cellphones as birds, so Cassie decided that they’ll pull a fire alarm in case of emergency.

On such short notice, it’s as good a plan as any.

Cassie and Noh-Varr peel off of the group and walk into the lobby of the Baxter Building. From there they’ll separate and scope out the public areas, as well as any non-public areas they can manage to sneak into.

The rest of us find corners and alcoves out of view and morph pigeon again.

Sometimes I feel like we spend more than half of our time in morph just staking out various yeerk bases. Oh, the glamorous life of an Animorph.

Billy and Loki 645 go on ahead, because if they can’t feel any Kandrona coming from the building, then we might as well give up. No point in risking capture for the wrong target.

The rest of us find roosts in various windowsills and look in with our little beady pigeon-eyes.

There’s a guy with red hair checking his email at his desk. The only thing suspicious about him is that he’s still using AOL. I flutter my wings and hop onto another window sill. This one must be a break room. There’s two refrigerators, each with a long, wordy note tacked to the door. A woman in a grey suit is fighting with a coffee maker while two balding men fiddle with their phones.

Ah yes. Missions, action, adventure. Truly, the stuff of stories.

I fly to the next window. Three desks, two computers. All empty. Even the light is off.

< _It’s here_ ,> Loki 645 announces grimly. Zir thought-speech voice is distinctive. The only way the team ever mistook zir voice for mine was that they had nothing to compare it to.

< _Alright_! > Eli begins, <Teddy, can you find a spot on the roof and demorph? If you can break the window with your Skrull form, we can morph inside and go from there.>

< _No dice_ ,> Kate calls. < _The window’s plexiglas. He’d have to have enough leverage to break that, and I can barely fit on the ledge as a pigeon_. >

< _Wonderful_ ,> Tommy groans.

< _What do we do_? > This time the voice is Billy’s.

< _Alright_ ,> Eli says, < _We enter through the front door and make our way up_. >

I look down towards the ground. We are 32 stories up. What does Eli expect us to do, take the elevator in battle morph?

A burst of sound escapes through the glass of the window next to me, startling the pigeon brain.

It’s so loud, and the pigeon instincts are so adamants that we need to _leave_ , _now_ , that it takes me a moment to recognize the sound for what it is:  a fire alarm.

-

Here’s what’s happening inside the building, although I don’t find out until later:

Cassie took the elevator up to the observation deck on the 30th floor. The pair of businessmen in the elevator with her looked her up and down and immediately dismissed her existence. For the seven minutes it took for them to rise 24 stories, Cassie stayed quiet and still and listened to them talk vaguely about “the big shift coming up” that’s going to “change everything”.

When they got off at the 25th floor, Cassie held her hand in front of the elevator doors and counted to 30, then quietly followed them.

Noh-Varr took elevator #2 to the 30th story, then discovered that elevator #5, the one that would take him to the top five floors, wouldn’t open without a key card.

He settled down in front of the elevator console and got to hacking.

-

Cassie pretty soon figured out that she was just tailing some normal human bureaucrats (or, if she was tailing yeerk bureaucrats, that they were relatively unimportant).

Ironically, it was after she left the two businessmen, as she was sneaking back to the elevator, that she was recognized by a receptionist who was coming back from the bathroom.

“You’re that missing Lang girl!” the woman exclaimed, and that was when Cassie started to run.

She had the presence of mind to skid to a stop next to the help desk and yank the lever of the fire alarm before ducking under the arms of a lab technician and leaping into the elevator.

 As she began to descend, she realized that the yeerks would almost certainly be on the lookout for her _now_.

She slammed the emergency stop button, and the elevator glided to a halt between the 19th and 18th stories.

That’s where we found her, sitting on the carpeted floor of the elevator patiently waiting, after the action was over.

-

Meanwhile, the rest of the team quickly demorphs on the ground. With Cassie possibly discovered and the building being evacuated, we’re shorter on time than we hoped.

The fire trucks are probably already on their way.

If the yeerks know we suspect the Kandrona is here, they’ll increase security or move it somewhere else or otherwise do something to make this harder, so we’ve only got one chance.

That’s why we cut our losses and stampede through the lobby of the Baxter Building in battle morphs.

We look like a bunch of circus escapees, the weirdest combination of animals you’ve probably ever seen: America’s in her giant moose morph, for one. You might think that moose aren’t very dangerous, but they are huge. They are ice age megafauna. They will mess you up. Billy’s a Siberian tiger, all corded muscle and feline grace. Eli is in his mountain lion morph, smaller than Billy but more maneuverable. Kate’s a black bear, seven feet tall standing on her hind legs. Tommy’s in his gorilla morph, Teddy’s in his natural Skrull form, and I’m a coyote. Tommy and I have two morphs we use in battle, his cheetah and gorilla, and my coyote and python. Considering that we’re going to have to fight inside and somehow get to the 32nd floor, I figured coyote would work better.

The arrival of a bunch of giant wildlife into the building stirs the previously-orderly evacuation into chaos.

Workers in suits and khakis scatter and scream. Some hug the walls, but the less thoughtful among them run for the doors, right through us. If we were real animals, probably some of these brave/stupid people would have gotten mauled, but we’ve all had enough practice in our morphs that we ignore the human bodies that stream between us as we make a bee-line for the elevators.

< _Pretty sure we’re over the weight limit_ ,> Tommy quips as we wait for the doors to open.

< _Would you rather take 30 flights of stairs_? > Kate asks.

Tommy doesn’t reply.

The light above elevator #3 indicates that it’s at level 19, and it doesn’t seem inclined to move. That gives us only three elevators left for several thousand pounds of animal muscle.

< _Split up, Teddy and Billy in one elevator, Kate and Tommy in the second. I’ll take the third with America and Serrure_ ,> Eli orders. As much as we tease him the rest of the time, none of us hesitate to follow him in battle.

You’re not supposed to use the elevators during a fire (or a fire drill), but I guess some of the people working in the Baxter Building forgot that, because we stop on the 7th, 19th, and 23rd floors, the elevator doors opening just long enough for me to growl low in my throat at the surprised humans, before we continue our trip up.

The doors open on the 30th floor to reveal half a dozen humans (presumably human Controllers) lying on the ground in various states of injury, some groaning and crying, some apparently unconscious. Their handheld Dracon beams sit in a pile in the corner, still smoking.

Noh-Varr beckons to us, smiling. “They were lying in wait. Shall we continue?”

All eight of us look to the single elevator that would take us to the 32nd floor. We glance at one another.

< _So… do we take turns_? > Billy asks.

Eli shakes his mountain lion head.

< _We’ve come this far. We’re only going to get one shot at this_. >

America and Tommy would have to half-demorph to fit into the elevator with everyone else. It’d still be a close fit.

< _Wait! > _says Loki 645 _. <Noh-Varr, what else can you make this elevator do?>_

_-_

When the elevator reaches the 32nd floor, the yellow _31_ fades and _32_ alights. A small, courteous ‘ding’ sounds through the room. The honor guard of Kree and Hork-Bajir Controllers shoot on sight. They don’t even wait for the doors to open- probably knowing that some of us would escape in bug morphs.

The metal doors cave in under the force of the energy beams, warping and twisting in the heat. The carpet of the elevator is scorched, the railings are melted, and the far wall is blasted all the way through, leaving a smoking hole in the side of the building.

So it’s a really great thing we weren’t in there.

-

As the door closed behind us on the 30th story, the lights announcing which level we were on experienced a Noh-Varr-induced delay, giving the appearance that we were steadily making our way up the next two stories,

-when instead we got off on 31 and took the stairs.

As the steam cools and the Controllers begin to realize that they’ve been duped, a moose, a gorilla, a coyote, a mountain lion, a Skrull, a bear, and a tiger all burst out of the stairwell.

We got our distraction, and we covered our entrance.  Not bad, for a yeerk’s plan.

Tommy, by virtue of having opposable thumbs, is the first one out of the door, leaping full-throttle onto a group of three Hork-Bajir Controllers.

Hork-Bajir look kind of like humanoid velociraptors with long necks, with switchblades attached to their joints. You could make horror movies about Hork-Bajir. You could kill someone by having them sit too closely to one.

Tommy stretches out his legs and catches two in the chest with his big gorilla feet. He punches a third in the throat.

There’s blood dripping onto the floor- red, so I guess it’s Tommy’s. I don’t have time to figure out where he’s been injured, as I’m more concerned with pouncing on a humanoid Controller, Kree or human, I’m not sure.

My coyote teeth connect with a forearm, and it must be Kree, because it doesn’t break when I bite down.

My claws scratch at the Controller’s chest as he tries to shove me off, only succeeding in causing my teeth to rip deeper into the flesh of his arm.

A fist connects with my torso, and the coyote finally lets go, to avoid more pain.

My lungs won’t fill completely, and I sputter for a moment trying to find my breath. The Kree might look like humans, but they’re so much stronger, it’s ridiculous.

I cough twice, a harsh, wet sound not unlike a pet dog trying to throw up.

Then, cool fresh air fills my lungs and I leap, once more, into battle.

Kate’s standing in the middle of the room, swiping her huge bear paws at anyone she can reach. I hope her bear eyes can distinguish Noh-Varr from the other Kree in the room, because getting hit by a bear can kill a human, and can certainly knock down a Kree soldier for awhile. A Hork-Bajir Controller manages to sneak up behind her and swipe her back with the blade on his wrist. She lets out a rumbling bear roar, startling my coyote morph and making me glance around for hiding spots.

If this gets any more violent, we’ll need a place to demorph so that our wounds will heal.

I don’t find such a spot, but I do find Billy ravaging a tall, blonde Kree woman, America goring a Hork-Bijar on her massive antlers, and Teddy actually, legit wrestling with some huge Kree soldier.

It looks weird. The coyote doesn’t pay as much attention to human facial features as I would in my own body, so most of what I see is a huge green scaled beast fighting a huge muscular blond humanoid. It almost looks like Teddy’s Skrull form wrestling his human form.

Noh-Varr kicks the legs out from under the last standing Kree Controller, and Tommy obligingly sits on top of her to make sure she stays down.

There’s Hork-Bijar blood mixing with Kree blood and gorilla and bear and tiger and moose on the floor.

Someone’s red pawprints lead to a door on the opposite side of the room.

< _If you’re all done, I found something_ ,> Eli’s voice announces.

-

The room housing the Kandrona was clearly once a laboratory or something. It has white tiled floors, the kind that are easily mopped and bleached. There are cabinets and counters lining the room, dotted here and there with wide chemical sinks.

The far wall is divided by three locked Plexiglas windows, the ones that several humans in pigeon bodies peeked into just minutes ago.

Sitting incongruously on an island in the middle of the room is the thing they’ve been searching for.

It’s wide, maybe nine feet from one end to the other. It sits on its side, like an egg or a giant pill. It’s ringing softly, filling the air with the smell of ozone.

The Kandrona generator: the machine that allows the yeerks to live outside of their home planet. The one thing, other than interstellar travel, that enabled the invasion of Earth.

< _Look, are we going to do something, because I think the Kree are starting to wake up_ ,> America warns, shuffling her giant moose hooves nervously.

< _Right, yeah_ ,> Tommy agrees. He practically tackles the thing with his giant gorilla body, pulling and pushing at it. He might as well have been in his human body, for all the Kandrona moves. It’s kind of a weird let down. We went to all this trouble, almost got mauled by Hork-Bajir and we can’t even move the thing?

< _Anyone have a better idea_? > Teddy asks.

< _Yeah, > _America says _._ She lowers her big moose head, aiming her massive antlers carefully _. <Teddy, help Tommy push it. Everyone else get out of the way_.>

And then one thousand pounds of North American moose charges the Kandrona. Her antlers slip against the sleek surface at first, but then she finds the right angle and _pushes_.

Tommy , stationed to her right, pushes at the casing with all the muscle of a full-grown male gorilla. On America’s left, Teddy’s Skrull form manages about the same amount of force.

Slowly, gradually, but undeniably, the Kandrona begins to move.

The Kandrona rolls backwards and falls off of its pedestal with a _clang_. The tile cracks underneath it.

America and the boys trudge on, pushing the Kandrona toward the far wall bit by bit.

<Where’s Cassie?> Kate asks Noh-Varr. The Kree soldier looks around for a moment before answering.

“Last I heard, she was headed for the 30th floor, but I didn’t see her there.” He pauses. “Elevator #3 is stuck between floors. That must be her.”

< _Great, > _Eli groans. _ <Ok, Billy and Kate, get Cassie from the elevator_. _The yeerks can’t find her_. >

Billy’s Siberian tiger morph hesitates for a minute, staring at the Kandrona generator. Loki 645’s last look at the life-giving machine, I guess.

There’s a pang of guilt in my stomach, but I don’t pay it much mind. Guilt is Loki’s thing. Don’t let zir fool you- guilt is a selfish emotion. Guilt is useless. When Loki was in my head, I felt zir guilt for myself, a cold, clawing emotion that overwhelmed zir at times. It doesn’t have truth or morality at its core, just shame.

Nothing would be gained if I listened to the guilt now. I know what we’re doing. I know it’s wrong. I know that people, yeerks, are going to die for this.

But not doing this would come with a heavier price: hundreds more humans losing their autonomy, their control, their lives.

We didn’t start this invasion, and we didn’t set the rules. And for now, as only eight kids against the amassed resources of an entire intergalactic empire, we can’t afford to play fair.

Billy and Kate are gone, and the Kandrona is halfway across the floor to the wall. I glance nervously at the doorway, toward the downed guards. Someone will get up, someone will call for help, and we’ll be fighting our way out, again.

The Kandrona reaches the wall. America, Tommy, and Teddy pause, look at the wall, the window three feet up, and at Eli, questioningly.

Before anything can be verbalized, a bright-hot Dracon beam illuminates the room and vaporizes a section of the back wall. It flashes a bit too close to Tommy, who snarls in fear and pain.

“Sorry, it pulls to the left,” Noh-Varr says as he lowers the stolen gun. “Is the hole big enough?”

It isn’t, but the gorilla, moose, and Skrull working together quickly widen it to a sufficient width.

The moment the Kandrona is pushed through is almost anti-climactic. There’s just a burst of air coming in, then a dull thud from the ground below. Tommy sticks his gorilla head out of the hole.

 _< It looks pretty smashed to me,> _he reports _. <And I don’t think it landed on anyone.>_

< _Alright! Kate and Billy? >_ Eli asks, broadcasting his question wider, trying to find our missing teammates several floors below.

< _We’ve got her_ ,> Kate sends back. _< Moving out.>_

 _< Ok. Everyone in bird morphs, reconvene at the Warehouse.> _Eli’s mountain lion morph surveys the room before turning away. < _We’re done here_. >

The only hitch in this plan is Noh-Varr, who can’t morph and who really shouldn’t go back down the building, either. With some experimentation, Teddy manages to sprout huge green bat wings from his Skrull form and, despite repeated warnings from Eli, who knows more about physics than Teddy does, both Skrull and Kree depart from the hole in the wall, trusting Teddy’s new wings to carry them.

As I demorph, I watch their progress. It’s less controlled flight and more gliding swiftly downwards, but they get far enough away that I can’t see exactly where they landed, which I guess means the yeerks won’t know, either.

The rest of us shed our battle morphs, stopping at human just long enough to heal our wounds before continuing on to flight-capable morphs.

A small flock of pigeons take flight, leaving nothing behind but a few stray feathers.

-

It’s Friday evening when we destroy the Kandrona generator.

We didn’t manage to find another portable yeerk pool, I realize on the flight back to the Warehouse that night.

If I know Loki 645, ze probably visited the yeerk pool this afternoon, right before the mission. That means, best case scenario, we have three days to find a solution before ze starves to death.

Unfortunately, now that the Kandrona is gone, every yeerk in the city will be thinking the same thing.

-

First thing Saturday morning, Kate and Tommy fly down to the hospital. They land on the windowsill of the yeerk pool room, but it’s been completely cleaned out.

They sneak in through the rooftop door, but not even a  mouse nose can find a hint of yeerk in the whole place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there it is, the destruction of the yeerk food supply.
> 
> The next three chapters explores what will happen in the subsequent three days, as yeerks begin to starve right out of their host bodies.


	10. The Aftermath, Part One: David

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weekend after the Kandrona's destruction is long and painful for every yeerk in the city.  
> This is the story of David and Belasco 238.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: descriptions of disordered eating, descriptions of disassociation/brain weirdness.

After the Sharing meeting on Friday night, my yeerk goes down to the pool with the other members of his squad. From what I’ve seen, there aren’t really enough Controllers around to make scheduled feedings necessary, but I guess it says something about the yeerk military that they do it anyway.

Our squad includes most of the involuntary Controllers in the highschool, those yeerks whose hosts didn’t sign up for this. There aren’t a whole lot of us. Maybe seven, give or take. Yeerks don’t have much use for teenagers, unless we have influential parents or show unusual promise.

That’s me: too gifted to be trusted. I got too close to the truth four months ago while researching the Sharing’s origins. One of the other Controllers heard me mention something about it to Tommy, and pretty soon I had my very own brain slug.

His name is Belasco 238. We don’t really talk.

He’s intent on his mission (whatever that may be this week), and prefers to ignore the inconvenient voice of his current body’s previous owner.

The group of us walk together through the halls of the school. Other than the other departing Sharing members, the building is deserted this late in the day. The hallway is lit only by emergency lights, but we’ve done this trek twice a week since July, so no one has trouble keeping up.

The entrance to the yeerk pool is down in the basement, in a secret passage next to the boiler room. The yeerk pool complex is vast and cavernous. It’s built in a natural cave under the city that was hollowed out and reinforced by the first wave of Controllers in the 90s. Ever since then, additional entrances have been made any time a convenient building needed to be renovated. There must be half a dozen ways to get into the pool scattered across the city by now.

That’s where the yeerk slipped up, by the way. That’s how I found out about them.

They own a construction company that only seems to exist when a building within a two-mile radius of the high school needed to be renovated, then it disappears into obscurity again. At the time, I thought it might be something like insurance fraud, but now I know that some Controller must be bad at paperwork.

We make our way past the hidden door and down a winding set of stairs into the pool complex. The dull roar of the caged hosts meets my ears almost immediately. I don’t flinch. I can’t. Even involuntary muscle movements are beyond my reach.

I can tell something is wrong as soon as we reach the main room, where the corridor opens up into the massive chamber that houses the yeerk pool. The cages are too full, with human hosts housed with Hork-Bajir to save space. The line at the pool, instead of being efficient and short, is long and winding, almost reaching our place at the mouth of the corridor.

‘ _What’s going on_?’ I wonder.

Belasco 238 doesn’t answer. I might as well be talking to a brick wall.

Amora 529, the yeerk infesting Amy, flags down a passing Controller and asks her what’s happening.

The Hork-Bajir answers clumsily, forcing vocal cords to wrap around alien words:

“The Kandrona is offline,” she says in Galard.

I didn’t speak Galard when I was first infested, but I do now. Belasco 238 interacts with a lot of Hork-Bajir Controllers, and there’s no way for any of them to pronounce English like the human Controllers do amongst themselves. When the Kree and Hork-Bajir are around everyone speaks Galard, the standard galactic language that was created to use pronounceable by almost any kind of mouth.

“What do you _mean_ , offline?” Amora demands. “We have to feed tonight! When are you getting it back up?”

“We’re working to replace it as fast as we can. Remain calm. As the galaxy revolves, the yeerks move with it,” The Hork-Bajir answers, sounding remarkably like a telemarketer, for a giant lizard-monster.

“That’s not good enough!” Amora tells her.

“What about the pool ship?” Belasco asks. “Surely at a time like this, we should be able to visit the mothership to use the Kandrona facilities there?”

Hork-Bajir have faces like snakes, and don’t smile or frown. She blinks great lizard-eyes at my yeerk and replies. “The Pool ship has a limited capacity and transportation to or from orbit has been relegated to Subvissers and essential personnel.”

With that, she turns and leaves.

“This is such bullshit,” another human Controller grumbles nearby. “The Pool ship had a high enough capacity to get us here, but can’t accommodate us now? Yeah, right.”

We ask several more guards, interrogating them for any detail of a timeframe or alternative options.

The last overworked, put-upon human Controller sighs and hands us each a voucher,

“-to allow you a space at the front of the line when this is all fixed-”

and ushers us out.

“I heard there was a Skrull attack downtown,” someone whispers as we pass them on the stairwell. “Daken 413 said the bandits hit the building he was guarding, fought their way inside, and killed everyone.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Amora replies. “If they killed everyone, how did Daken hear about it?”

I don’t hear any more, because Belasco 238 stalks away to brood in silence.

-

The yeerks usually feed on a two-day schedule, giving them some leeway before they start to feel the effects of Kandrona starvation.

Around midnight, Belasco 238 starts to feel pangs.

It’s hunger, bone-deep, clawing at his mind instead of at my stomach. I don’t usually get much bleed-through of Belasco’s emotions or feelings, but this wave of pain and need washes over him, leaking into me through every point of contact.

When I can think again, I notice I’ve fallen to my knees. Before I can think better of it, I put a hand out to steady myself.

I freeze, and a second later, Belasco 238 comes to his senses, and we get up.

I don’t wonder if he noticed. I don’t think about it. Instead, I focus on remembering the pain Belasco 238 was in, and wondering how much longer it will last.

-

Belasco 238 doesn’t get a moment of sleep that night, which means that I don’t, either.

He spends Saturday morning devouring any scrap of food he can get his hands on, hoping to assuage the Kandrona-hunger. He eats everything there is to find in my parents’ fridge, vomits, then heads to the mall.

Belasco sets himself up at a table in the food court and continues his quest. He orders two large Big Macs from the McDonald’s, a venti mocha from Starbucks, and a two-entrée, two-side meal from the faux-Chinese place.

He’s finishing the first Big Mac when I catch sight of Tommy lurking in my peripheral vision. Belasco continues munching away, but strategically tosses our head to avoid a fly, managing to get a better look at my former friend.

That’s definitely Tommy. And he’s definitely staring.

‘ _He’s wondering how you can eat so much,’_ I tell Belasco 238 _. ‘You’ll probably have to throw up again after all this.’_

I’m not sure he believes me, but he continues eating and doesn’t reply.

Halfway through the Chinese, he turns our head again. Tommy’s still there, watching. This time, he doesn’t look worried or surprised. He looks intent.

Belasco 238 feels fear, and anger.

‘ _He’s watching us_ ,’ Belasco says. ‘ _He knows something_.’

My yeerk so rarely addresses me that I don’t have a reply prepared.

 _‘Don’t be stupid_ ,’ I tell him. ‘ _Tommy’s just some guy_.’ But I’m not sure that’s true anymore, and the yeerk, living in my brain as he does, knows exactly what I suspect.

Belasco looks back again, and this time all we see is Tommy’s retreating back.

The yeerk makes my body jump up, and we skulk after Tommy, leaving the lukewarm coffee and half-eaten Kung-Pao chicken at the table.

We leave the mall, and walk south for three blocks before Tommy bursts into a run, turning raised curbs and flower pots into stepping stones and hopping from place to place.

‘ _Parkour_?’ Belasco wonders.

‘ _Nah, free running is about ecomony of motion. He’s just showing off_.’

I wonder who he’s showing off to, whether he knows that we’re following him, or if he routinely bursts out into ridiculous athletic feats to bewilder strangers.

There was a time when I would know the answer to that, but after Belasco infested my head, he didn’t find it important to cultivate my social contacts outside of the Sharing.

I’m glad, though, that it allowed Tommy to stay free.

We start sprinting, trying to keep up with Tommy’s haphazard route through the city.

He keeps up the pace for ten minutes before returning to the ground like a normal person.

He still hasn’t looked back, hasn’t seen us following him.

I wish he would.

He leads us maybe a mile further, past the shops and restaurants and into the industrial section of town. We turn a corner and Tommy hesitates.

Belasco barely manages to duck behind the corner before Tommy glances back toward us.

By the time we peek back around, he’s disappearing into an alley between two big, square buildings.

We approach the alley slowly, listening intently for any sign that Tommy is about to jump out and beat the shit out of me for stalking him halfway across town.

Instead, we find the alley empty, and past the dumpster and piles of rusting metal, we find a door.

There are voices coming from inside, muffled, indistinct, but inarguably human.

‘ _Are you sure you want to do this_?’ I ask Belasco 238. ‘ _What are you even looking for_?’

In lieu of a response, Belasco 238 opens the door.

Eight faces stare back at us. Tommy, his brother,  some guys from school-

A Kree soldier.

I flinch back from this realization, my mind already spinning scenarios in which Tommy and his friends are another squadron of Controllers, but something else stops me in my tracks:

The eighth member of the group is familiar, and entirely unexpected: Cassie, the missing girl. The escaped yeerk host.

Belasco 238 tries to back away, but something blocks his way. Our head turns, and we see that the solid figure we’ve backed into is Teddy, Tommy’s brother’s boyfriend. Billy darts out and closes the door, but neither Belasco or I are focused on him. Instead, we watch as Teddy’s blonde hair turns a forest green, and his skin blooms with scales.

A Skrull. Teddy is a Skrull.

I should have figured this out just from Cassie’s presence, but I guess Belasco 238’s hunger is affecting my mind, too.

This isn’t a squadron of yeerks. It’s a team of Skrull Bandits.

-

My yeerk would have put up more of a fight, but it’s been 67 hours since he’s absorbed Kandrona rays, and just keeping me in check is taxing his mental resources to their limit.

Teddy is holding us down while Kate-something ties my body to a chair with an electrical cord.

Belasco 238 has just enough time to sneer at her before something really weird happens-

-

_I am a yeerk. I am Belasco 238, newly promoted._

_I am a member of the Yeerk Empire, which will one day stretch to all arms of this spiral galaxy._

_‘We have conquered the Hork-Bajir home world, we have tamed the Taxxons. We will dominate the Kree as well,’ I tell my new host._

_‘You will not,’ the host says to me. ‘I am Bea-Triss, Kree soldier, and I will not surrender. When I fall, others will take my place. We will not fall to ones such as you!’_

_I search her memories for a culturally appropriate response. It wouldn’t do for her to misunderstand me, after all._

_Ah, there it is. When Kree are amused, they make a harsh sound with their mouths, pushing out air rhythmically._

_I try it out._

_I laugh._

-

I wake up gasping, my mind reeling from what I’ve just seen. I was in the yeerk’s mind, just like he’s been in mine.

If his memories are bleeding through to my mind, I hate to think of what’s happening to him. I imagine Belasco 238 dissolving into goo and dripping out of my ear. I’ve never heard of a yeerk dying of Kandrona starvation while still inside a host. I wonder what it would do to me.

I kind of want to gag thinking about it, but of course not even that reaction is available to me with the yeerk in control.

“Can you hear me, man?” Tommy asks, squatting down next to the chair so that we’re eye-to-eye.

“Of course he can hear you,” one of the other kids says, rolling his eyes. “He’s a Controller, not deaf.”

Belasco 238 glares over at the offender, and I’m surprised to recognize Serrure, a member of the Sharing. A full member, one with an alien slug in his ear.

A kernel of horror sprouts in my chest, but Belasco 238 only feels a grim satisfaction. He has an ally in the room that no one else knows about.

Something about this situation is wrong.

‘ _These are human kids, not Skrulls_ ,’ I think to Belasco. ‘ _And if Serrure’s yeerk knows about them, why hasn’t he told Visser Three?’_

‘ _There are bigger fish than Visser Three_ ,’ Belasco 238 replies. ‘ _Loki 645 is canny enough to know that_.’

Belasco’s mind is fevered, frenzied. I’m not sure he’d know a good argument if it jumped down his throat at this point.

“Tommy? Tommy, what’s going on?” Belasco 238 asks with my voice. “What happened to Teddy?”

Tommy looks a bit sick, but doesn’t reply.

“Give it up, yeerk,” one of the other kids says. “We know what you are.”

“Yeerk? What?” Belasco says, maybe overselling the ‘ignorant bystander’ bit. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, sure, play dumb to the group of people who just destroyed the Kandrona generator,” another buy drawls. I think his name is Eli, but then again, if a Skrull is impersonating Teddy, maybe this guy is an alien, too.

“Kandrona?  Yeerk? Is this some kind of weird LARP or something? Let me go! Tommy!” Belasco persists in his ‘innocent’ act, but that’s to be expected from someone who spends all his time impersonating me. Despite his words, I can feel a jolt of fear and anger when they mention the Kandrona.

Huh, what do you know. It really _was_ the Skrull Bandits.

“You’ll be dead in a couple days. Don’t you want to come out of there, maybe die in peace?” Billy asks quietly. If I could, I’d laugh. He doesn’t know much about yeerks, does he?

“What are you talking about?” the yeerk asks. “I just saw you at the mall, Tommy, and I-“ the yeerk pauses, and manages to make my cheeks blush. I can feel the warmth, even if I can’t react to it. What the hell is he doing? “I wanted to talk to you.”

Tommy’s face is grim and contains no sympathy. The yeerk continues his charade anyway.

“I guess I’ve been avoiding you recently,” the yeerk says, as if confiding an embarrassing secret.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ I think. ‘ _Oh no_. _Stop_!’

“It got to be too much, being around you all the time,” the yeerk continues, ignoring my internal screaming. “I wasn’t comfortable with the way I felt around you.” Belasco 238 pauses, and looks up at Tommy for a reaction. Tommy is stone-faced, but behind him, his twin looks kind of horrified. Teddy reaches out and takes his boyfriend’s hand.

Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. “Teddy” is a Skrull in disguise, not Billy’s actual boyfriend. Why would he be acting like that with a teenage human?

My musings are interrupted by the climax of the yeerk’s act:

“But I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’m ready to admit it: I’m bisexual. And- and Tommy, I think I’m in love with you.”

The room is silent. A couple of the kids look away, either out of respect for Tommy’s privacy or to avoid giving anything away. Tommy stares at my face coolly. Loki 645 and America are much the same.

“If David thinks of me like that, he can tell me himself,” Tommy says loudly. “ _After_ you shrivel up and die.”

I know I’m tied to a chair, surrounded by a group of people who are all possibly aliens in disguise, and I’ve got a mind-controlling slug in my head, but I think this just might be the best moment of the last four months.

-

_My host is angry and full of sorrow as I jab an elbow-blade into the neck of the other Hork-Bajir. It’s clumsy and jerky, but the attack does the trick, and the enemy combatant loses her grip on the tree, falling fifty yards to the forest floor. Distantly, I hear the crunch of her landing, but I’m already moving on to my next target._

_The Hork-Bajir are not violent by nature, they fight only in self-defense. We, the Hork-Bajir Controllers, have had to work and repurpose Gedd fighting styles to train pacifistic bodies into the shock troops they were always meant to be._

_My host cries and sobs and repeats the name of the fallen alien over and over._

_‘Shut up,’ I tell him, ‘Don’t you understand progress? You beasts were wasting your potential staying in your forest. You could be a part of something bigger, greater than you ever imagined!’_

_My host sobs louder in my mind, and I ignore it and move on._         

-

The next time I come to, Kate is berating Tommy.

“I can’t believe you were so oblivious,” she says. “Did you never look behind you on the whole way here?”

Tommy does his little half-sneer and shrugs. “Sorry I’m not as paranoid as you, Oh Fearless Leader.”

Kate sighs, and backs off.

“Okay, but from now on, nobody walks here. Arrive in morph, every time.”

Cassie clears her throat, prompting Kate to add “-or in disguise, I guess.”

I hear all of this, but I don’t take it all in. It doesn’t seem to make sense.

What do they mean, in morph?

-

_Bea-Triss is stubborn and bull-headed. She stopped struggling, eventually, but she still persists in her belief that the Kree will one day defeat the Yeerk Empire._

_‘You are all yeerk slaves,’ I tell her often, ‘There is no one else left who would take up your fight.’_

_‘There are free Kree,’ Bea-Triss argues. ‘And one day, they will destroy you.’_

_At first, her words amused me. Then, to annoy me._

_Two years after Bea-Triss became my host, I begin to admire her resolve and faith in her people. I have no love for the Kree, but I’m not certain the Yeerks are on the right track, either. A military that allowed Visser Three power over the invasion of an entire planet is not one that deserves much trust, in my opinion._

_I wish the yeerks were as loyal and determined as the Kree._

_-_

I’m thrown back into the present, and this time even Belasco gasps when the florescent lights hit our eyes.

-my eyes. They’ll be my eyes again, soon.

I can feel the yeerk’s thoughts begin to blur. So can he. He’s done biding time.

“Loki!” Belasco yells, giving up pretending to be me, I guess. “Loki, whatever you’re planning, for God’s sake _do it now!”_

We stare past Tommy and Billy and the Skrull-Teddy, to where Loki 645 stares out of Serrure’s eyes.

Belasco is staring at Loki, eyes locked. But… I can’t focus our eyes. But I can focus my attention to our peripheral vision.

My yeerk is staring at Serrure, but everyone else in the room is looking at Billy.

“BRRRRRP, Loki’s not here right now, would you like to leave a message?” Serrure says. Then, his green eyes sparkling, he grins.

-

Before I can really process what just happened (including whether or not it was a hallucination), I’m catapulted into another memory.

_“It’s Visser Three,” the other Hork-Bajir Controller hisses in our hosts’ native tongue._

_I step into line quickly, picking up a piece of twisted metal and examining it in order to look ‘busy’._

_I don’t reply, because the Visser could walk by at any moment. Hork-Bajir Controllers have a modest position in the yeerk hierarchy: we are above the host-less and the Gedd Controllers (and the few, unfortunate Taxxon Controllers), and we generally answer to the Kree Controllers, Visser Three among them._

_The Kree hosts don’t speak Hork-Bajir. They can’t understand the hisses and grunts, and thus the Hork-Bajir language is banned._

_“Well?” A booming Kree voice demands in Galard. “What have you found?” My host body tenses in alarm. If Hork-Bajir flinched when they were startled, someone might lose a limb._

_“The remains of a Kree spacecraft, sir,” I report with a deferential head nod. “Of the three crafts to exit the atmosphere, at least two were shot down by our Bug Fighters.”_

_“At least two?” the Visser asks. He makes it sound like a threat. Answering to Visser Three is always a coin toss. You have to figure out what he wants to hear, and make sure he hears it._

_Does he want a more accurate account, or does he want to hear that all of the Kree are dead?_

_Well, this is the Visser, isn’t it._

_“There’s no way to be sure,” my partner explains. “Pieces of the ships were scattered in the atmosphere, and much of it burned up on the way back down. This could be most of two ships, or bits and pieces of three.”_

_“You can’t tell me if the third ship escaped?” The Visser accuses._

_My partner hesitates, and says “No, Visser, I can’t.”_

_I know immediately that this is the wrong answer. My partner knows a moment later, when Visser Three fires a Dracon cannon through his head._

_The smoking remains of the Hork-Bajir crumples to the ground. Visser Three turns to me._

_“Three Kree spacecraft were shot down,” I report._

_“Good.” And with that, the Visser leaves._

-

Belasco 238’s time is growing short. The memories grow shorter, rushed, playing on fast-forward. His thoughts are sluggish (no pun intended), non-linear.

The words themselves are starting to break down, single sounds or concepts dissolving into my mind, replaying softer and softer until they’re gone.

Soon, I’ll be free.

Soon, the yeerk will be dead.

-

_Warm water and Kandrona rays wash over me. Yeerks swarm together, swimming in complex patterns that churn the water all around. There is something different in the water today._

_I send out electrical impulses, trying to see what all the commotion is about. Yeerks don’t see as Gedd do, with refracted light. Instead, we parse out forms and currents in the water with our glands. We can’t be tricked by shadows, we see what’s really there._

_At first I think it’s just another swimming pattern, a kind of yeerk dance, before I recognize it for what it is._

_Three yeerks swim together in a circle. They glide around, weaving around one another in joy and sorrow. It’s the mating dance. These yeerks are saying goodbye to the pool, and hello to the new life they will create together._

_I swim slowly at the edges of the pool, catching glimpses of their dance as other yeerks dart to and fro between us. The three get closer and closer together. I lose sight of them for several minutes, and when my view clears, they are no longer three yeerks swimming together, but three forms pressed together, the places where one yeerk begins and another ends blurs together._

_We see truly, so I know that this is not an illusion. These yeerks are fusing together. Soon, they will be unrecognizable as the individuals they once were. Soon, they will be a ball of yeerk genetic potential, which will fission into several hundred new grubs._

_Distantly, I wonder what their name will be._

_Then, a Gedd’s head dips into the pool, and I dart forward, searching for the ear…_

-

The memory dissolves rather than ends.

Fragmented thoughts and feelings and flow through me and away. The time for vivid memories is gone, lost with Belasco’s coherence. Even the emotions: rage, fear, nostalgia seem blurred and diffuse now.

When the pain starts, I hardly notice. At first it seems like just another echo of a feeling, but then it grows. It balloons outward, pushing out the anger and the ‘ _maybe if I-‘_ and the bits of memory that remain. For several long seconds, all I am is pain.

Then, it stops.

I feel a wet ‘plop’ and something hit my shoulder. It feels a little like the time we went to the beach when I was eight, and a sea gull pooped on my back while I was making a sand castle.

I look down. It’s still a reflexive at this point, even if I haven’t been able to move my own body in months.

A small, greyish slug lies upside down on my shirt. As I watch, it slips off and onto the dusty floor.

It does not move again.

I laugh, a dry, harsh sound.

“David?” Tommy asks.

I look all around me. I take deep breathes. I laugh again, for the joy of it.

I can move. I have my life back. I can speak my mind again, I can make decisions,

I can fight back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes us to Saturday evening. Belasco is one of the first yeerks to succumb to the Kandrona starvation. Loki 645 will be one of the last. Ze has until Monday evening to figure out a way to survive.
> 
> Wish zir luck (or possibly don't).


	11. The Aftermath, Part Two: Serrure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days after the Kandrona's destruction, Serrure and America see what they've wrought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: minor character death
> 
> Inspired by Animorphs _The Alien_

The Warehouse is getting to be pretty crowded now, with Noh-Varr, Cassie, and now David staying there. Kate figures we need to find a better hideout, and she’s right. I don’t know if David can go home again, whether the yeerks will know he’s free or whether they’ll have bigger concerns distracting them from checking in on teenage hosts.

But anyway, three people can’t live in that room. There’s no running water, for one thing. I’m not sure how Cassie and Noh-Varr have managed for so long, to be honest.

So Noh-Varr, Eli, and Kate are working on an alternative, but there’s nothing for me to do, so I decide to spend Sunday hanging out with America.

We aren’t close, but recently we’ve gravitated toward each other as the two Animorphs who are kind of add-ons. Everyone else has connections and friendships and relationships between each other. Me and America, we’re loners even when we aren’t alone.

“Kate’s really different since the night at the Stark mansion, you know?” America tells me, swinging her legs in the air and she sits on top of the monkey bars.

I’m perched on top of the peaked roof of the jungle gym ever since America said she bet I couldn’t climb up here.

She should know better.

“Yeah?” I ask. I try to think back to how Kate acted in the beginning, but my memories of the past few months are blurred. It’s hard to pay a lot of attention to the events around you when you can’t impact them. I guess sometimes I just zoned out when Loki 645 was in control.

“Yeah,” America says. “She used to be really outgoing. She was the kind of person who’d decide to invite a random girl from class to hang out, just because she thought I might be cool. I guess we don’t have time for that kind of thing recently, but… she doesn’t reach out like that anymore.”

The change from third person to first person doesn’t escape me.

“You don’t see much of her outside of missions?” I ask.

America shakes her head. “It isn’t that. She doesn’t connect with anyone anymore. We’re her whole world. Even her archery is suffering, and I didn’t think anything could come before that.”

I hum in acknowledgement.

“And you brought me to the playground behind the middle school because-?”

America swings her legs up, locks her knees behind a metal bar, and slowly slides her body upside down, her curly hair hanging under her like a cloud.

“It’s quiet here. I can see the sky. It’s nice.”

I look up. You _can_ see a lot of the sky.

“You don’t spend much time at home, do you?” I ask her.

I can’t see her face from this angle, but I can hear her snort in amusement.

“You’re reaching, chico.”

-

We walk down to the K-Mart for lunch, and get personal pizzas at the tiny pizza shop situated just inside.

While we lick grease from our fingers and try to remain steady on the chairs’ uneven legs, we watch the people around us.

“That kid is really upset, but his mom is just ignoring him. I wonder if he does this all the time.” I pick a pepperoni off of the pizza to eat later.

“He’s probably just hungry or tired. Babies don’t know how to not feel things yet,” America observes. She takes a sip of Coke.

I tilt my head, considering this. “Do you have siblings?”

“No, but I- what’s that?”

She stands up to get a better look, and I follow her line of sight.

A cashier is leaning heavily on her register, as if she’s lost the ability to stand. She cries out.

As we watch, she crumples to the floor. Her head hits the tile and bounces, and I wince in sympathy.

America vaults over the small wall dividing the pizza shop from the rest of the store, and I grab the rest of my pizza before following.

By the time I get there, a small crowd has gathered. America kneels by the woman’s side and asks her a question in a low voice.

The woman just lets out a broken moan. She curls in on herself, and paws at her head.

As we watch, a small greyish blob slithers out of the woman’s ear.

A few bystanders recoil back in disgust. America leans in closer.

That is, until a uniformed security guard shoos everyone away. He’s big, but not terribly muscular, like a guy who played sports in highschool and hasn’t stayed in shape.

He leans down and picks her up, supporting her with an arm wrapped under her armpits and around her back.

“She has low blood pressure,” her manager reassures the gathered crowd. “She’ll be fine.”

I wonder if he’s a Controller too, or if he’s a human just trying to cover his own ass.

America drifts closer to me in the crowd. “Where’s he taking her?” she asks, her eyes narrowed and staring at the “Staff Only” sign on the door the guard just marched through.

Any other day, my guess would be ‘the break room’ or maybe ‘the hospital’, but today, when a guy in a rent-a-cop uniform just dragged a newly freed yeerk host away?

I’m not quite sure what lengths the yeerk empire will sink to in order to keep the invasion secret.

America glances left.

I glance right.

We go through the door.

There first door isn’t locked, but the next one is. There’s a glass window in the door, though, and we can see the guard and the limp form of the woman talking to a man in a red polo. They look angry, like her collapsing in the middle of the day was a great inconvenience.

The guard says something, and the man in the polo shakes his head.

Then, and this is a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life-

Then, the security guard takes the woman’s head in her hands and violently jerks it to the side, breaking her neck.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” America whispers to me.

I nod, and we sneak out the way we came in.

-

“He killed her! He just killed her in public!” I know I’m repeating myself, that I’ve been saying this for the past ten minutes.

“I know, I know,” America agrees. “Is this what they’re doing all over?”

“I guess they have to keep the hosts quiet,” I realize. Guilty, I wonder if this is what they would have done to David.

We thought we’d be free, that we’d be helping the hosts of all of those yeerks. I guess we didn’t really think through the _immediate_ consequences of destroying the Kandrona.

“There are at least eight Controllers at school. Are they going to die, too?”

America mumbles something. This is noteworthy, because America may mutter, may scream, may hiss, but never, in my experience, mumbles.

“What?”

“My moms, Serrure!” her eyes are wide and scared, and she looks exactly like the terrified girl I saw in the ruins of Stark manor, and not at all like the self-assured badass I fight next to on a regular basis.

I think it says something about America that the prospect of death and dismemberment doesn’t scare her as much as danger to her parents.

“What about them…?” America doesn’t share much. I know two things about her parents.

1)      America is related to them

2)      They are women

That’s pretty much it.

America just grabs my arm and runs.

-

It turns out that America lives across the street from the school. This makes her habit of hanging around the playground make a lot more sense.

It’s a little two-story house painted white and gray. There’s a tiny stone bench standing next to the front door, and it’s covered in moss and dirt.

America pulls a keyring out of her pocket and unlocks the door.

“Moms!” she calls, leaning into the stairs to project her voice into the second story. “Moms?”

Nothing. No answer.

The most we get is an old gray tabby that looks up from her spot in the windowsill when we duck into the kitchen.

“Maybe they’re out?” I suggest. America glares at me.

“I don’t need optimism. I need answers.”

“Why are we looking for them, again?” she hasn’t answered the last several times I’ve asked, but maybe repetition will break through her silence.

“My parents are Controllers,” she confesses.

“I-oh. _Oh_.”

We didn’t know. Or maybe Kate knew. She’s as close to America as anyone is.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells me. “So what if you knew? We’re still fighting the yeerks.”

“Yeah, but… we’re your friends.” I pause. “You’ve been living with yeerks all this time? Aren’t you afraid- what if you’d been taken?” Forget how depressing that is, that just seems dumb. America isn’t thoughtless.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I can’t just leave them alone with those- well. I couldn’t leave them alone. The yeerks can take my parents from me, but they can’t take me from my parents.”

I guess that makes some kind of sense.

“And anyway,” she continues, “yeerks impersonate people by using their thoughts and memories, right? So, in a way, every time Mama Tia packed me a lunch for school, it was because that’s who she is, even if the yeerk was the one going through the motions.”

There are tears in her eyes, and I have no idea what to do.

America doesn’t cry. What.

“We’ll find them,” I promise, though I have no right to. “Maybe they aren’t gone yet. Try calling them!”

The first try goes straight to voicemail. So does the second.

We’re sitting on the bottom stair, listening to the eerie silence of the house, when the phone abruptly starts ringing.

America jumps to answer it.

“Hello?”

I can hear a woman’s voice on the other end, but I can’t make out words. It takes me several moments to realize that she’s speaking in Spanish.

“Si, si. Pero, mamá- No, que esta bien. Bueno.”

America’s left hand clenches in her lap, and I wonder what her mom is telling her.

“Te amo, tambien. Hasta luego.”

She hangs up the phone. Her eyes stare forward, unseeing.

“Uh, so-“ I start. I’m not sure how to end the sentence.

“She says they got called out of town suddenly. They’re not sure when they’ll be back. I’m supposed to check in with the neighbor every day until they come home.” America’s voice is flat. We can’t trust anything her mom says to be true, after all.

I wonder if they’re just buying time before two more hosts can be reported missing. I wonder if ‘out of town’ is code for ‘went to space to visit the yeerk pool’.

I don’t say any of this to America, of course.

“Do you think there are yeerk pools in other cities?” America asks.

I-

I didn’t think of that.

-          -              -              -              -              -             

I try to go to school like normal, that Monday.

In homeroom I stare down at my American History homework and try to make the words make sense. My classmates’ voices wash over me with discussions of Game of Thrones and Doctor Who and Jersey Shore, but also of ‘ _Jessica didn’t come to school today’_ and ‘- _his mom’s in the hospital’_ and ‘- _please don’t go to his party, he’s a total creep._ ’

Time passes at a crawl. The teacher writes on the whiteboard. The projector acts up and refuses to focus, leaving the board a bright blur of words. I stare at a word that might once have been ‘goal’. It kind of looks like someone poured water over a book page, the ink spreading and defusing until there’s only the gray smudge that suggests there was once a word.

The whispering continues behind me. I wonder how many of my classmates have friends and relatives and neighbors who mysteriously disappeared this weekend.

The teacher still hasn’t given up fixing the projection when the bell rings.

I walk to my locker in a fog. Habit and muscle memory is the only way I remember my combination. I stare dumbly at the inside: my backpack, hanging on the hook. Two textbooks, a stack of folders, and a 3-ring binder sitting on the shelf at the top. A pile of forgotten items at the bottom: a gym shirt, a couple napkins, three broken pencils, a lunch from last week, never eaten. I dig in the backpack for my planner. With everything that happened this weekend, I can’t remember which classes I have today, which books and folders and binders I should be taking with me.

 I’m so distracted that I’m almost glad when Karolina grabs me by the shoulder and hauls me into the girls’ bathroom.

-It’s cleaner than the boys’. I guess girls are less likely to pee on the floor, and also, I notice, more likely to write graffiti on the walls.

Karolina’s staring me right in the eyes, and the intensity makes me uncomfortable. I look away.

The Yeerk Peace Movement would’ve been hit just as hard as the other yeerks. They must know who to blame for this. They must know who killed their friends, their symbiotic partners. Guilt churns in my stomach.

Karolina raises her hand, and I flinch back, sure I’m about to be hit. Say what you want about ‘punching like a girl’, but Karolina is older and bigger than me, and if she can hit half as hard as America can, then I’m in trouble.

She doesn’t hit me. Instead, she reaches up and brushes my cheek with her fingertips.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

I stare at her.

“We were running around all weekend, trying to- well, you know.” She looks guilty for a moment. “I’m sorry. We should have tried harder to find you.”

She’s looking for some sort of reaction, but I can’t give her one. I’m just completely lost. She knows I’m in contact with the ‘Skrull bandits’. Have the yeerks not told their ranks who to blame for the Kandrona’s destruction? Does she not know we’re responsible for all of this?

“Serrure? Say something.” She hesitates before saying, “Is Loki 645 still with you?”

Mutely, I shake my head.

She brings a hand to her mouth, horrified. Tears well up in her eyes. Numbly, I wonder what it’s like to be able to feel empathy so freely, to allow yourself to feel so deeply. There’s a reason I haven’t thought about the Yeerk Peace Movement all weekend, I admit to myself.

“I’m so sorry,” Karolina says. “We have a Kandrona source. Subvisser 82 isn’t ready to commit to our cause, but I guess she wants to keep her options open…” she trails off. “Is- is Loki 645 still alive?”

To be honest, I’m not sure. Billy didn’t come to school today.

I consider how to answer, and suddenly I realize: I could say ‘no’. I could tell Karolina that Loki 645 is already dead, and by the time I see Billy again, it will be true. None of the team will ever know about this conversation, after all. No one would ever find out about this opportunity I have to save Loki 645. Most of them probably wouldn’t blame me for lying, even if they knew.

It could all be over. No more avoiding Billy’s eyes. No more sarcastic voice over thought-speak. No more moral dilemmas, no more reason to talk to the Yeerk Peace Movement.

I could be free.

I curl my fingers, and swallow my guilt.

“I think so,” I answer. “Can you help zir?”

Karolina nods, relieved, and quickly jots down a note on a piece of scrap paper.

“Bring Loki to this building as soon as you can,” she tells me.

Then, she places a hand on my shoulder and pulls me into a hug. “I’m so glad you guys are okay.”

She turns to leave, and I stop her without thinking.

“Is Xavin-?” I’m not sure how to ask this. How do you ask if someone’s partner has died in their head?

Karolina’s face stretches in a grin. “She’s fine.”

“Good. That’s good,” I tell her.

With nothing else to say, Karolina leaves for class.

I can still get out of this. All I have to do is wait until school lets out, and it will be too late to save Loki 645.

Instead, I find a quiet corner and send a quick text to Billy.


	12. The Aftermath, Part Three: Billy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been three days since the Animorphs destroyed the Kandrona generator, and Loki 645 is dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: I'm not kidding around with the summary, guys. This is not a happy chapter.
> 
> This chapter and the previous one overlap in time, both taking place on Sunday and Saturday. Serrure's chapter takes place on Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, and this chapter takes place Sunday night through Monday afternoon.

Loki’s fine for the first two days. A little shaken, true, and I can feel a constant note of anxiety and fear in zir mind, but ze’s competent and calm, mostly distracted by David’s arrival and Kate’s attempts to find another Kandrona source.

The sickness starts Sunday night, around 52 hours since Loki had access to Kandrona (not that I’m counting).

At first ze just seems easily distractible, trailing off during conversations and not always responding when I call zir name.

Around ten o’clock, I find out what’s disrupting zir.

-

Falling into someone else’s memory is like having a particularly vivid lucid dream. You have some context thrown into your mind, but mostly you’re playing out some event as if it’s happening to you in real-time.

One moment I’m in my bed, idly texting with Teddy, and the next-

_I am a yeerk, small and sleek and delicate. I glide through the warm pool, skimming the bottom, avoiding my fellow yeerks with a deftness_ I wouldn’t expect from a slug _._

_The Kandrona fills my body with a pleasant tingling. I am blind and deaf, but I don’t feel worse off for that. I can smell my peers in the pool, identifying them by their scent and hailing them by name._

_I use the organ located between my stubby antennae to send electrical impulses through the liquid sludge. I receive an answer almost immediately, and in the memory, I laugh, a weird shaking motion that nonetheless expresses amusement to the other yeerks around me._

The warmth of the yeerk pool smoothly gives way to the warmth of my bed, so that I’m not quite sure when the change happened. One minute, I am Loki 645, at home along my friends and acquaintances, with Billy existing only as an echo, a witness. The next, I am Billy, a human with Loki 645 ever hovering in the back of my mind. The distinction is more subtle than I expected. We call ourselves a symbiote, but I didn’t realize just how much we’ve been acting as one being.

Yeerks can talk to one another in the pool. I never knew that, before. I never thought to ask.

‘ _We evolved sentience in the ponds of my homeworld. The Gedd were few, so most of us would have spent most of their lives without a host, at one point. Of course we can communicate_ ,’ Loki 645 says. Ze doesn’t sound angry, but just a bit amused.

‘ _I guess I didn’t think_ ,’ I admit.

After that first memory, the others follow in quick succession.

-

We pass the night like that. At some point vivid memories turn into lucid dreams, but I can’t pinpoint exactly when. It’s not restful, whatever it is.

Sometime between a memory of Loki’s first day on Earth and a dream of morphing a python, Loki makes a suggestion.

‘ _You don’t have to do this,’_ ze says.

I roll over and glance at the clock. 5:30am.

_‘Do what?’_ I ask. When do I wake up for class? I do the math in my head. If I go to sleep now, I’ll get 45 minutes of sleep…

_‘You don’t have to go through the fugue with me. I can ride it out in the jar. It’d be… better for you.’_

“Loki, I’m not going to let you die in a jar!” I hiss into the darkness. Somehow, speaking out loud carries more weight.

_‘I’m losing my coherence,’_ ze tells me _. ‘By morning my mind will be restless, the hunger will come. I’m dying, Billy. You don’t have to feel it with me.’_

Maybe if we weren’t symbiotic, that would be that. Instead, I feel the message under Loki’s words. Fear, loneliness, sorrow. Zir words say one thing, but Loki’s emotions are screaming ‘Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to die.’

_‘You did all this for us_ -‘ I start. But. No. If this is our last conversation, I need to get to the point, to say exactly what I mean.  

“That day in the Warehouse, when I held you in my hands, I was all fear. I was afraid our friends were dead. I was afraid of what I might do to myself or to other people. After you joined me, the fear didn’t overwhelm me anymore. When I’m scared and panicking, I know that even if I fail, there’s someone there to catch me and keep going. Look, Loki, you can go through this alone if that’s what you really want. But I know what it’s like being scared and alone, and in my experience, being scared with someone else is a lot better. Let me be here for you. Don’t leave me alone yet.”

Loki’s emotions swirl around me, more vivid and stronger than usual. There’s fear, yes, but… now I notice that it isn’t just the fear of death. Loki’s afraid of what zir death might do to _me_ , too.

I don’t know how to reassure zir. I’ve never had a friend die on me before. I don’t know what I’ll do.

Oh god _, I don’t know what I’ll do_.

‘ _Call Teddy when it happens_ ,’ Loki urges me. ‘ _Don’t let me leave you alone_.’

“Okay. Okay.”

-

6:30am comes and goes, and even my mom doesn’t think I’m fit to go to school today.

Instead I lie in bed, staring at my ceiling and trying not to think about what tomorrow will bring.

-

The next time my vision dissolves, I find myself in a bathroom. It’s small, and well-decorated, like an upscale hotel or a model home.

_I finish washing my hands, drying them off on a fluffy purple hand towel. They’re smaller than my own, and calloused on the sides of the fingers. Writer’s hands, something in my mind says._

_I look up, into the mirror._

_Serrure’s face is glaring back at me. I step back, afraid. The Serrure in the mirror doesn’t flinch at all. Instead, he leans forward, presses his hands against the glass, and hisses,_

_“I am the crime that will not be forgiven.”_

_No sound penetrates the mirror, but I know what he’s saying anyway. The words repeat and grow louder with every repetition._

_“I AM THE CRIME THAT WILL NOT BE FORGIVEN!”_

_He’s screaming now, his face scrunched up, looking more animal than human. His eyes are turning yellow, his nose is sinking in, fangs sprout from his mouth._

Serrure’s pale skin is just being replaced by brown scales when the vision recedes.

-

‘ _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ ,’ Loki chants in my mind. I don’t know if ze realizes I can hear it.

_‘It wasn’t real_ ,’ I tell zir, ‘ _It’ll be okay_.’

_‘No_ ,’ says Loki 645, ‘ _It really won’t._ ’

My phone beeps, and with great effort I turn over to grab it off of the nightstand.

As I swipe at the lock screen, I notice the time: it’s 11:29am.

The text message is from Serrure. It’s short, and at first, utterly confusing: just an address, the word ‘quickly’, and an unfamiliar acronym: ‘YPM’.

“Your… pain…mine?” I puzzle. “Yours Peace…”

‘ _Yeerk Peace Movement_!’ Loki 645 gasps.

I’m sore, exhausted, and anxious as all hell, but I somehow manage to drag my ass out of bed and throw on a sweatshirt, because this just might be the miracle I’ve been wishing for.

-

I’m supposed to be home sick. Mom apologized before leaving for work today, told me that leftovers were in the fridge, but she and dad couldn’t stay with me on such short notice.

I don’t think they could’ve helped with the fugue, but it’d be nice to have transportation across the city right about now.

Instead, I swallow nausea and fear and decide to take a bus.

There’s a couple dollars in change in the bowl at the front door, and I stuff a handful into my pocket on my way out the door. I barely make it to the street before-

-

_I am a young yeerk, barely more than a grub. My siblings and I live in a pool on the ship Laufey, one of the three Pool Ships orbiting the Hork-Bajir homeworld.  The planet is safely conquered, and every so often, a group of reptilian, bladed aliens are taken to the pool ship to as hosts for another batch of yeerks._

_I am young. Of the yeerks that resulted from my parents’ joining, a dozen survived their grub cycle. Loki 046, Loki 883, and Loki 166 are more distinguished than I am, and have already been granted Gedd hosts. The rest of us swim idly in the pool, listening to stories of the outside world, waiting for the opportunity to explore it through hosts of our own._

_I am impatient. I don’t see why I should wait._

_Instead, I listen carefully._

_Baldr 223 has been promoted. Word is that he’s getting a Hork-Bajir host from the planet below._

_I swim idly in circles, slowly and circuitously making my way to the infestation pier._

_A head is forced under!_

_Thrashing, bubbles, and, yes, blades. A new host, a Hork-Bajir!_

_I dart forward, making for the alien’s ear before anyone else (Baldr included) can stop me._

_The ear canal is small, oddly warm. The strangest thing is the lack of moisture, a sensation that is completely unfamiliar to me. I squirm forward, forcing my body into the small crevasse._

_The smells are strange, organic, and musky. I continue on._

_My body writhes and twists in new ways to make it to the Hork-Bajir brain. I reach out, without fear._

_There’s space enough for me between the brain and the skull to spread out. I blanket myself over the alien’s mind, letting my edges sink into the wrinkles of tissue._

_I send out an electrical impulse._

_It returns._

_Oh. Oh._

_The host is female. Its name is Sif._

_Sif is **angry**._

-

The walk to the bus stop is cold and miserable. I’m not sure if it’s actually cold out, or if Loki’s sickness is making me feverish.

I sit down on the bench, because I’m not confident in my ability to remain standing if I get caught up in a flashback again.

I take out the bus schedule and-

-

_‘You take over my life, you destroy my friendships, you trick my family, and now you’re going to hand my entire species over to the yeerks.’_

_“Shut up,” I growl. Sitting alone at Serrure’s desk, no one else can hear me, and speaking aloud has a certain power that mere thoughts lack, I find._

_Serrure persists._

_‘But hey, you’re a slimy alien slug. It doesn’t matter to **you** that these kids you’re about to betray are probably mankind’s only hope for freedom.’_

_“It’s not like that,” I hiss. “This isn’t your life anymore.”_

_‘Right,’ Serrure says, ‘Because it’s yours. You’re the underdog, the downtrodden hero just trying to make a mark and do zir duty. Wait. No, my mistake. You’re the low-budget scifi version of demonic possession.’_

_“Aren’t you done?”_

_‘Aren’t you? Haven’t you taken enough from me already? My body, my family, my identity. Why do you have to take **this**?’_

_‘This’ could be anything, in the context of this argument, the latest of many between my host and I. It could be the opportunity to morph. It could be the chance to be a hero. Because I’m wrapped around Serrure’s mind, because I can read his every thought and feeling as easily as he might read a book, I know that he means something larger, broader. He means ‘hope’._

_“This is **my** life now,” I say, revealing more desperation than I really meant to._

_Serrure is silent for a moment, and when he does respond, it’s with sarcasm and humor sharpened to a point._

_‘Right, well I guess possession is nine-tenths of the law.’_

_Possession. Was that a fucking pun?_

_“I’m glad I took over your life, if this is what you would waste it on!”_

_‘No, you aren’t.’ Serrure replies._

_And damn if he isn’t right._

-

The sound of the bus door opening shocks me out of the memory, and I clamber on as quickly as I can.

I fumble a minute with the change, counting it out and recounting.

I grabbed five quarters, three dimes, a nickel and seven pennies.

I need two dollars.

No. No! I need to get there. I look, helplessly, at the bus driver, but he gives me a kind of bored look and reiterates the price.

I guess I look pretty sick, because an older lady in a front seat takes pity on me and fronts me two extra quarters.

I slump into a seat near the back, and-

-

_I sit at a kitchen table. The room in brightly lit by two bay widows set into the wall beside me. Sunlight reflects off of marble countertops and decorative knickknacks._

_I tighten my grip on my pencil. I am a yeerk. I am a representative of a galactic empire spanning several planets._

_I know exactly as much about human history as my host does. That isn’t much._

_‘What was the war of 1812 fought for?’ I ask Serrure anyway._

_‘Hell if I know,’ he replies._

_I search his brain for a memory of history class, about two weeks ago. I find instead memories of a girl in a green dress, the way her face twisted into grotesque forms as she and Serrure traded glances across the classroom._

_‘You are a terrible student,’ I tell my host._

_‘Yeah, well I’m pretty sure reading someone else’s mind is cheating.’_

_The door opens, and I look up automatically. My hand reaches to hide my homework from the newcomer, in case it’s Serrure’s father._

_This is not a conscious action. A yeerk may control a body, but some things the body does on its own._

_It isn’t Serrure’s father at all. It’s Don._

_Fondness and hope well up in Serrure at the sight of Don. He really does love his brother._

_Hope wells up in me, too, because Don is smart, for a human, and probably knows all about the War of 1812._

_Except- yes. Don wouldn’t help me now. We fought just this morning, when I asked him to come with me to a Sharing meeting. He said he didn’t have time, and I attempted to manipulate him by accusing him of not caring. He got angry._

_He wouldn’t help me now._

_I look back down at the paper and try to calculate how bad it would be if I just burned the paper._

_“Hey Serrure,” Don hails. I sink lower in my chair. He’s probably going to lecture me about being respectful, like his father would. I glower at the tablecloth._

_“Hi,” I say quietly._

_“Doing homework?” he asks. I say nothing. “Would you like some help?”_

_Surprised, I look up. Don’s smile is guileless. He looks like the fight this morning never happened, like he feels nothing but love for his younger brother. Like he legitimately just wants to help._

_Look, it’s not that yeerks don’t help one another, or aren’t fond of their friends._

_It’s just- this is the moment that I begin to understand what family means to humans. Friendships may come and go, may exist for convenience or mutual benefit, but family exists for its own sake. Don will always stop to help Serrure with his homework, even if they’re mad at one another, just because Serrure is his family._

_This is the first time I ever feel envious of one of my hosts._

-

The bus ride is long, and punctuated by intrusive memories almost as often as bus stops. Something really strange happens during a particularly long stop, when the bus driver leaves the bus for a smoke break.

I’m scrunched up in my seat, leaning heavily against the window in case I get immersed in a memory again and my balance fails. I don’t see the guy get up from the back of the bus, but I certainly hear him.

“Hallelujah!” a man’s voice calls. “Sweet God Almighty, it is by Your Grace that we are all free!”

He walks slowly to the front, and I hear his heavy footsteps before he passes into my line of sight. He stops two seats in front of me to stretch upwards, just brushing the roof of the bus with his fingertips.

The other passengers are ignoring him, turning away and making sure not to make eye contact. I keep my eyes downcast, too.

“We are all in your eternal debt, oh Lord!” he yells. In my peripheral vision, I see him take something from his pocket and throw it on the ground. I hear a wet squish when he stomps it into the dirty metal floor of the bus.

“It is truly a blessed day to those who see Your face!” He makes it up to the front of the bus, then turns around to face us. The girl in the next seat over quickly averts her eyes, lest she draw his attention.

Then, loudly reciting “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”, he leaves.

I wait a few minutes before I move, mostly afraid he’ll come back and try to call me out.

I uncurl from my seat, and peek into the aisle.

There, lying in a wet puddle, is the crushed remains of a yeerk.

-

The address leads me to an old squat brown building, the kind that rents out offices to a dozen different weird charities and small businesses. I go in the wrong door, and have to ask at two different reception desks before I find suite #219.

The door has a space for a name, but it’s empty. Feeling awkward and out of place, I knock on the door.

It swings open almost immediately, as if the person inside was poised, waiting for a knock.

“Billy?” Nate asks in shock.

“Nate,” I breathe. That’s him. That’s the friend I haven’t spoken to in forever.

I should have expected this. Eli told me that Nate was a Controller. Serrure told me he was part of the Peace Movement. I should have known I might find him here.

“Billy, what are you doing here?” Nate asks, his eyes scanning the hallway behind me.

I readjust my thinking. I should have expected Nate, but he has no reason to expect me.

Serrure hasn’t told them.

I don’t have time to dance around the subject or to soften the blow.

“I’m here because Loki needs help.”

Nate’s brows furrow, his eyes searching my face as he tries to synthesize this information.

“You can’t be-“

We _don’t have time_ for this conversation. Loki 645 is _dying_.

“I’m Loki’s host, but ze really needs your help, so I hope you have something in this office to save zir.”

Nate frowns, but steps aside to let me in.

There’s a basin resting on a cheap Ikea desk set against the back wall. Beside it sits a machine that looks like an old record player, without the horn. It’s big and bulky and makes a quiet ticking sound. As I step closer, I feel a familiar tingling, a warmth in the air.

“That’s the yeerk pool?” I ask for confirmation. It doesn’t look like the portable Kandrona Tommy described, but there’s no suspicion or shock from Loki 645, either.

There’s not much of anything from Loki, actually.

I try not to think about that.

I lean my head over the pool, turning so that my left ear is pointed downwards.

‘ _Come on, Loki,_ ’ I urge the yeerk. ‘ _Just come out_.’

Loki doesn’t respond, or, as far as I can tell, move at all.

I shake my head slightly, as if the motion might dislodge zir.

_‘You can do this_ ,’ I tell zir. ‘ _Just a bit longer, and you’ll be fine_.’

Terror and hopelessness well up in my chest, and a feeling of panic overtakes me.

The back of my throat itches, and there’s a pressure behind my eyes.

‘ _I need you to do this_ ,’ I plead to Loki. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I try to lend Loki my strength. I imagine gathering up the drive I have left, turning my panic into energy as if by alchemy.

“Is ze-?” Nate asks, with pity.

I gulp, and start to cry.

In movies, crying looks dramatic and tragic, with two or three tears leaking down the heroine’s face (never the hero’s), before she hides behind her hands.

She might wail a bit, but her makeup doesn’t even smudge.

This isn’t a movie.

This is ugly and visceral and when some liquid makes its way into my mouth, I’m not sure if it’s tears or snot.

I’m gasping, loud gravely inhales mixing with half-formed pleas to a dead or dying alien.

I brace my hands against the desk on each side of the basin, turning away so that Nate can’t see. I don’t know who I’m fooling, I think as I sob into the useless yeerk pool. Nate can hear my sobbing. Hell, probably everyone in the building can hear me.

I imagine some worried secretary knocking on the door to try to help whoever is making this terrible noise, and unexpectedly walking in on a portable yeerk pool.

I laugh, but it’s a wet, unpleasant sound.

I’m going to be alone again.

Worse than that, I’m going to be alone after having experienced something else. Loki 645 was my friend. My rude, sarcastic, guilty friend, true, but ze was mine. Ze did terrible things, and was trying to make up for them. Ze was an alien, but ze was just as young and lost and scared as the rest of us, and now ze’s gone because ze wanted so badly to do right by us.

My sobs had been quieting down, but at this thought I find my second wind, and renew my deafening wails.

I hear a _plop,_ like a stone dropping into a pond.

Inanely, my first instinct is to check that my cellphone is still in my back pocket.

No, I open my eyes and look into the small, suddenly _useful_ yeerk pool.

At the bottom, a greenish-gray slug twitches its feelers.

Salt covers my cheeks and snot is caked on my upper lip, but this is the best I’ve felt in days.

I collapse, exhausted, onto a chair and hope that Nate will let me take a nap before the inevitable interrogation.

I am not so lucky, but I can’t bring myself to care-

Loki is alive.

-

“How?” Nate croaks, as if he’s the one who’s been sobbing his eyes out for the last five minutes.

I think back to the night I became Loki 645’s host, and wonder where to start.

“It’s-“

“Don’t say ‘it’s complicated’!” Nate practically yells.

I think he’s overreacting. After all, he didn’t tell me that _he_ was a Controller or a Symbiote or whatever, either.

I shrug. “It’s a long story,” I say instead.

Nate frowns, and seems to war with himself over something. Or- oh, maybe he’s talking to Vision 002. I’ve never seen another Symbiote before, so it’s interesting to watch how Nate’s face moves as two people’s emotions wash over it.

Nate’s eyes finally rest on the basin that holds Loki 645.

“Loki almost died,” Nate says, matter-of-fact.

“Yeah.” I don’t really want to think about that again, and I pray Nate drops the subject.

“I don’t know how you got Loki or how much you know about Serrure’s friends,” Nate begins, “but he knows the people who caused this. A bunch of alien radicals trying to single-handedly take down the Yeerk Empire. They sabotaged the Kandrona, the yeerk food supply, on Friday.”

I’m silent. I’m too tired to pretend right now, to lie.

Loki would be so much better at this.

“When we heard what happened, well… We knew Serrure and Loki were in contact with these terrorists, right? So at first we just assumed they’d probably killed Loki. I mean, if they’ve gone this far, why wouldn’t they?” Nate looks at me. “I’m glad Loki was with you. It’s probably what saved zir.”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” I tell Nate. I can’t sit here and listen to the other side of what we’ve done. I can’t think about this right now, after Loki almost died in my head. My mind flinches away from the entire subject.

He stares at me for a moment, before taking pity on me.

“How’s Cassie?” he asks instead.

“Good, she’s good,” I say, unable to muster a better answer. “I mean, she’s in hiding, so that sucks, but she’s alive and free and- yeah. She’s good.”

“She got infested first,” Nate tells me, and settles down in the only other chair. “I joined the Sharing to spend more time with her.” He lets out a choking kind of laugh. “And the stupidest thing is that it didn’t even work. Cassie got infested, and I got infested, and we didn’t even see each other.” He runs a hand through his hair. “God, this is all so messed up.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, but we both know how useless the sentiment is.

“You weren’t supposed to get infested,” Nate says. I cock my head to the side, questioning. “That was the deal,” Nate explains. “I agreed to go voluntarily as long as they didn’t go after my other friends. As long as _you_ remained free.” Nate emphasized ‘you’ oddly, as if it didn’t mean ‘you and Tommy and Teddy and Eli,’ but instead meant ‘specifically, you, Billy, and you should know why’.

“Thank you..?”

Nate just shakes his head, in wonder, maybe, or regret. For a moment, I’m reminded of the older Nate I met in a future that won’t ever happen.

“Uh, so how did ‘I’ll save your friend if you come willingly’ lead to ‘let’s join the yeerk resistance’, anyway?” I ask. I’m tired, and the longer Nate talks, the longer I have before I have to recount the last month.

Nate shrugs, a large, expansive motion. “It didn’t. My first yeerk was Kang 991, but he got promoted a few months back for ‘valor in the field’ or something, I don’t know, and got a Kree host out of the deal. So they gave me Vision 002.”

Nate smiles, but it’s a wry, self-mocking smile. It reminds me of Tommy, and of Serrure.

“Why’s that funny?” I wonder.

“There aren’t a bunch of yeerks begging to get a random teenage boy as a host. Vision is… they think he’s a wimp.”

I think about what I know about yeerks (as well as everything I thought I knew, but had been proven wrong about). What kind of behavior do yeerks consider wimpy?

If Loki 645 was around, ze would tell me.

Instead, I ask Nate. “Why’s that?”

“He only takes voluntary hosts.”

“Huh. And the deal you struck with Kang still stood?” That doesn’t mesh with what I know of the Yeerk Empire.

“Yeah,” Nate says, “And you went and found yourself a yeerk anyway. Typical.” There’s a ghost of his old smile on Nate’s face, and it brings one to mine as well.

“I missed you,” I tell him.

“You too,” Nate agrees. “Now tell me your long story.”

-


	13. The Aftermath, Part Four: Noh-Varr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs can't support any more refugees. David has a better idea.

“How do you shower?” David asks. “I mean, do you even have running water in here?”

I have only known David for a short time, and I already know he is smart. I’m honestly surprised this question didn’t come up earlier, but I suppose recovering from a yeerk fugue is a good distraction.

“There’s a 24-hour gym two blocks away. If you wear a sweatband and carry a towel, sometimes you can slip in the door behind a member,” Cassie answers, picking at the fibers of the couch.

“Uhuh.” David seems unconvinced. “And a bathroom…?”

“Gas station next door.”

“Ok, seriously?” he demands. “This is ridiculous. You can’t live like this!”

We can, obviously, and we have. But I do catch his meaning- I’m not exactly happy with our living arrangements either, especially with the addition of yet another roommate. David took the couch last night, but there are three of us now.

“Do you have a better idea?” I ask, curious. I have several, myself, but they generally require resources we don’t have, visibility we can’t afford, or violence my teammates don’t approve of.

“Actually, yeah,” David says, perking up considerably. “The yeerk military is basically a huge bureaucracy to keep track of several thousand yeerks and hosts and all of the accompanying resources, right? But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a bunch of aliens who evolved from slugs aren’t great with paperwork.”

“So?” Cassie asks, finally looking interesting in something other than the dirty couch.

“So they’ve got houses and money and whole companies to allocate to Controllers when they need them. If we can convince their system that we’re some Subvisser’s special project, we can gain access to their stuff, and the yeerks themselves will keep the human authorities off our track!”

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” I observe.

David’s enthusiasm wanes a bit. “I’ve had a lot of time to think these past few months. I had everything planned except my actual escape.”

“So you really have a plan?” Cassie demands. “Is this really happening?”

“I mean, there are a couple holes, and we still have to be careful not to be recognized, but yeah. I have a plan,” David answers.

“Oh thank god, I can’t keep living here. There’s only one room and Noh-Varr doesn’t have headphones for his cd player, and I just want my own bed and _running water_ again!”

David looks at me, his eyebrows raised in the human expression of curiosity. I’m not sure what the question is, so I take a guess.

“I really enjoy Taylor Swift,” I tell him. “ _Shake it Out_ is one of my favorites.”

For some reason, David winces and gives Cassie a sympathetic smile.

Taylor Swift’s genius is greatly underestimated.

Cassie and I settle down to listen as David begins to explain the plan.

-

I’m not good with human computers. This surprised the others at first, because the Kree are so technologically advanced, but they failed to consider how different Kree systems are from human ones. Kree technology is based on genetic engineering, on telepathic interfaces and genetic locks. Human computers are based on, near as I can tell, random strings of numbers and completely arbitrary design elements.

I can handle mechanical systems, like the elevator in the Baxter Building, but the most I can do with a laptop is use it as a blunt instrument.

Luckily for us, David is good with computers.

_“David knows everything about everything,” Tommy told us when we were properly introduced, the morning after David was freed of his yeerk._

_“I read a lot,” David corrected, his tone flat._

The dynamic between David and Tommy is interesting. They’re close, even with several months of separation between them. David knows which jokes to ignore, which to indulge, and which to correct, seemingly by instinct. They fit together somehow, even more than Tommy fits with his twin.

That’s the part that confuses me. Tommy and Billy are a matched set: genetically identical, I’ve been told. Surely their strengths and weaknesses should be the same? Surely they should be designed to work together, instead of awkwardly stepping around the subject of their familial ties.

There are some things about humans I still don’t get.

I guess not everything can be as simple as Taylor Swift.

I hum a few bars of _Blank Space_ while David makes a list of what we’ll need to pull this off.

“Disguises so the neighbors don’t call the cops to report kidnapped kids living there, fake IDs to back it up, and,” David bites the end of his pencil, looking nervous, “An adult to vouch for us and pretend to be our guardian.”

“The Skrull has great control of his morphing ability, and might be able to age-up an existing human morph for this purpose,” I suggest.

Cassie gives me an odd look.

“You mean _Teddy_ can do it,” she says.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Ok, if he’s up to it, then disguises are the hardest part.” David looks at us thoughtfully. “You two could maybe pass as siblings, but somehow I don’t think it’d fly for me.”

Humans vary in skin tone from a light pink to a dark brown. Like Kree, individuals who share genes are also likely have a similar skin tone. It’s fortunate I happen to be a pink Kree. My blue brethren wouldn’t blend in nearly as well among the humans.

“Step siblings?” Cassie suggests. “Or half-siblings?”

“You could be Cassie’s boyfriend who is staying with us after you were kicked out of your parents’ home,” I propose.

Cassie and David are silent for a moment, staring at me.

“You watch a lot of daytime TV, don’t you?” Cassie asks.

I shrug. “Is that relevant?”

David scratches his head in agitation. “That’s too _interesting_. We don’t want the neighbors asking about us or checking in on us. We want to be normal, boring, or maybe even embarrassing.”

“Uh, what don’t people like to talk about?” Cassie wonders.

“Politics and religion,” I answer immediately.

“…Yeah, that could work. We’re uncomfortably religious, and probably homeschooled.” David contorts his face in disgust. “Ugh, that probably means I was adopted on a mission trip or something.”

I’m not sure what that means, but I pat him on the shoulder consolingly. “There, there.”

Cassie giggles. David continues to the next item on the list.

-

“Do we need to call a team meeting?”

“I’m not sure we can fit everyone in the room anymore, to be honest.”

“Just Tommy and Teddy should do.”

-

David ditched his cell phone early on (“it can be tracked, even if we’re still not sure how much effort the yeerks are putting into finding me,”), so we have to wait until Tommy shows up to use his.

“It’s Wednesday,” David says.

“So?” Tommy asks.

“You’re cutting school to sit around in a smelly Warehouse with us?”

Tommy fidgets with his hands and looks away. “I can’t concentrate in school, you know that.”

“Right. Cell phone.” David doesn’t need to explain any more than that; Tommy immediately hands it over.

“So the plan is..?” Tommy asks us.

“I hack into yeerk records and get us a house, Teddy impersonates an adult, Cassie and Noh-Varr dye their hair, and you get us fake IDs,” David rattles off.

“How am I supposed to get ahold of three fake IDs?” he asks.

David gives him a blank stare. “I know about the club last summer.”

“Right. Three fakes. Got it.”

-

We don’t actually need the IDs immediately, and we’d all like to get out of the Warehouse as soon as possible, so we go ahead and call Teddy over.

Teddy is among my favorite Animorphs, because when he picks up the phone on the second ring, he doesn’t seem too confused as to why David has Tommy’s cellphone, and when he hears the rapid-fire explanation of what we need from him, he just hums thoughtfully and agrees to do it.

Teddy is chill. He is a good friend.

-

The weakest part of the plan is the journey across town to the empty house. We’re three fugitives and a Skrull hidden in plain sight. The yeerks would love to get their hands on us, and the only thing preventing that is their distraction and our paper-thin disguises.

“A hat and a Starbucks cup do not qualify as a disguise,” David says as we stroll through the street of the city.

“Just drink your latte,” Teddy replies.

“Wait, did you-“

“Seriously, it worked in the past- although now that I think about it, no one was looking for us yet, so-“

David interrupts Teddy, as he was interrupted first. “ _Teddy_ , did you see this newspaper?”

David has stopped next to a metal box holding a stack of folded paper. The front of the box is a glass window displaying the front page of the paper bundles. The page holds a greyscale photograph of the hospital, as well as several columns of human writing. I squint at the paper, trying to persuade by cybernetic translation implant to decode the writing, but it doesn’t work. It never words, for writing.

“Does anyone have any change?” Cassie demands, going through her own pockets. Teddy and David quickly check their own. I don’t bother. Why would I have human currency on my person? It’s not as if I can walk down the street and buy a CD on my own.

Teddy and David quickly find that they, too, are broke.

Cassie inspects the metal case carefully, as if it will reveal something more to her.

It’s just a metal box with a hinge on one side, and a slot to insert coins. The coins must trigger the locking mechanism, allowing the customer to retrieve a bundle of paper for their money.

It looks simple enough.

“If it’s already in the paper, it must’ve started last night,” David says.

His words wash over me as I inspect the metal box. Yes, with just the right amount of pressure…

“They’ve got to know we’d find out, though, right?” Teddy replies, uncertain. “What if it’s a trap?”

I wrap my fingers around the window’s handle and begin pulling. I use just the smallest amount of pressure at first, and slowly increase it. Human machinery is amazingly fragile, I’ve found.

“Can we risk that it’s not?” Cassie asks. “I mean, what could they be doing to the hosts in there? They’d have to either re-infest them or kill them to keep us quiet.”

The metal groans, and I pull just the smallest bit harder, until- yes! The window pulls free, taking a bit of the locking mechanism with it.

I reach in and grab one bundled news-paper.

When I turn around, the other three are staring at me. I hand the paper to David.

“What does it say?” I ask, curious.

“You can’t read?” Cassie asks. “I thought you were supposed to be a genetically-enhanced super-soldier.”

“I can’t read _human_ ,” I correct her. “I _am_ fluent in three other galactic languages.”

“ _English_ , Noh-Varr,” Teddy says. He has a hand pressed to his face, a gesture I have seen humans do often. I am still not entirely sure what it means, but I suspect it is exasperation or embarrassment. Teddy is still smiling, so I decide not to worry about it.

“The front page article is about a public health crisis that hit the city this weekend,” Cassie explains, her eyes rapidly scanning the page. “They say it’s a neuro-toxin from household cleaning supplies. Symptoms include hysteria, hallucinations, the sensation of a loss of control, and eventually fatal seizures.” She looks up, catching David’s eye. “They advise anyone who has these symptoms be taken to the hospital for treatment.”

David’s face twists into a grimace. “They’re rounding up the free hosts.”

“And covering their asses,” Teddy adds.

“So, what do we do?” Cassie asks the group.

I want to go in. I want to destroy this futile attempt at damage control, to make the Yeerk Empire face their utter failure to hold this city.

But it isn’t my decision to make. This isn’t my world, no matter how much I have come to love its music, its food, its people.

“It’s a trap, either for us or for freed hosts,” Teddy says.

David shakes his head. “We’d know better. If Belasco died during school or at the mall, I wouldn’t go ‘oh I’d better check into the hospital, maybe that whole yeerk thing was a hallucination!’ This isn’t for hosts. This is a cover-up. It’s a threat to keep us from telling anyone. As soon as anyone starts talking about yeerks, well-meaning family or friends will bundle us off to the hospital or, worse, call the cops.”

“So…we go in and free whoever they’ve got so far?” Cassie asks, glancing from David to Teddy.

“I doubt they’d leave the hosts alive for long enough,” I tell her. “If you won’t agree to destroy the hospital, and the hosts already know better than to check themselves in… I’m at a loss.” I look over to Teddy, but it’s David who confirms my suspicions.

“143 dead in public health crisis,” David quotes, having found the second page of the article. “Sounds like this poison has a very low survival rate, probably linked to how many spare yeerks they’ve got lying around.”

“At least they’re free, even if they can’t tell anyone,” Teddy says quietly.

“Yeah,” Cassie agrees. She shivers, a motion humans go involuntarily when they’re cold.  “Let’s get going.”

-

The house David’s found is two-stories, with a small front yard. It’s painted in shades of light blue and sits between two other similar houses in brown and orange, respectively.

There’s a blank signpost in the front yard, as if someone prepared to put up a for-sale sign and gave up.

David says the house had stood vacant for two years, but the grass is only slightly overgrown. I wonder who has been seeing to the yard.

It doesn’t seem like something yeerks would think of. Perhaps a friendly neighbor helped out.

We don’t have a key. David suggests that we break in and replace the locks.

“As long as we look like we belong, no one will stop us,” he says with confidence.

Obediently, I turn the back door knob just too far. Metal creaks and wood splinters, and with minimal cosmetic damage, we make our way inside.

-

“Ok Teddy, it’s show time. What’ve you got?” Cassie asks.

The taller blond shrugs. “I thought I’d go late-30s, keep the blond hair and most of my facial features. I think I look enough like Noh-Varr already to pass as a relative, and as long as you keep your hair blonde, everyone will think you’re family, too.”

I tilt my head and examine Teddy’s face. I don’t see the resemblance, myself. True, our skin is a similar color, and we’re both fair-haired, but we resemble each other only as much as any two pink Kree do.

“Wait, do you have a human morph that looks like that already?” David asks. “What if someone recognizes it and knows you aren’t our dad?”

I pause. No, I remind myself, Teddy is a Skrull. He’s not one of my people at all. The pink skin and yellow hair I’m looking at are only part of his human disguise. The real Teddy is larger, green, and covered in a thick, scaly hide.

“It’s not a real person,” Teddy reassures David. “It’s just a couple tweaks to my usual human form. If anyone notices a resemblance, we’ll say I’m a cousin.”

I wonder if my people will forgive me for working with a Skrull in my quest to save them.

David’s brows furrow in confusion. “I thought you needed to morph a particular individual of a species,” he says slowly, trying to put together the clues in his mind.

“The others do,” Teddy agrees. “But it’s different for Skrulls.”

There’s a pause as Cassie, Teddy, and I realize that there were a few gaps in David’s understanding of the Animorphs.

“You’re really a Skrull?” David hisses. “That wasn’t a trick, or a morph or something?”

“Yeah,” Teddy confirms, absent-mindedly coaxing his hair shorter as he slowly becomes and older, chubbier version of himself. “My mom and I have been here since I was a baby.”

“And you’re better at morphing because you’ve had more practice?” David guesses.

Cassie tries to explain further, “The Skrulls invented morphing technology, so I guess they’re just better at it.”

Teddy immediately shakes his head. “No, not exactly. We’re natural shape-shifters. We’re born this way. I’m not sure why artificial shapeshifting is so different, to be honest.”

David zeroes in on exactly the detail that’s been bothering me all these months.

“If Skrulls are natural morphers, why would they have a machine to give the morphing ability to humans?”

I gather up all I know of the Skrulls, all I know about their power, their ruthlessness, and their arrogance.

“They wouldn’t,” I say with absolute certainty.

There’s a knock on the front door, and our conversation is put off for another time.

“Show time,” Cassie whispers.

-

There’s a couple waiting on the front step, two young adults dressed in what the internet informs me is called ‘business casual’. They appear to be a man and a woman, although I have been wrong before.

“Hello!” the woman greets us. “Are you just moving in? This house has been empty for so long, we thought we’d never have neighbors!” her tone is flatter than it should be, her smile a little too fake to be real, but I politely ignore that and hold out my hand.

“Hi,” I say with my best ‘normal human boy’ smile. “I’m Noah.”

“I’m Greg Danvers,” Teddy says. He’s standing right behind me, and I almost flinch when the unfamiliar voice booms right behind my head.

Stay calm. You can do this. Normal human family.

“Karen, Daniel! Come meet the neighbors!” Teddy calls, and Cassie and David appear in the doorway moments later, as if they weren’t waiting just outside the hall for their cue.

The young couple are Luke and Jessica Cage. The woman and Teddy make small talk for several minutes, mostly centered around the Cage’s new baby and the house’s previous residents (“It was one of the Stark’s homes, before the bankruptcy,” Jessica explains.).

Then, as the yellow sun of Earth began to set, the Cages say their goodbyes, and we all retreat back into the house.

“That went better than I expected,” Cassie admits. “Did you make up those names on the spot?”

“Was it obvious?” Teddy asks, shrinking down into his usual form.

“Only to us,” David assures him. “Now give me your cell, I have to tell Tommy what names to put on our IDs.”

Teddy makes his goodbyes, needing to get home before his mother notices something’s wrong. I wonder why a Skrull woman would bother to send her son to human school, but I keep my comments to myself.

The house is large, foreign, and mostly empty. We’re all excited about having a new home base, but none of us are prepared to make the move tonight. We have to gather our things, find ways to transport the more bulky objects I’ve acquired over the course of my time on Earth.

And, of course, we have to fill in the others on our successful mission.

-

I start to hum as we approach the Warehouse, and the others are so relieved and optimistic that they join in, with Cassie singing vocals.

“Everything will be alright if we keep dancing like we’re-“ Cassie sings.

“Twenty-two!” David and I chorus as she opens the door.

The light is on, which catches me off-guard. Although the team uses the Warehouse as a meeting space, I’ve come to consider it as mine, and the idea that someone’s been here while I was away is unsettling.

‘Yeerks could have found our base,’ my mind cautions. ‘At least one Controller has before.’

This is true, but as I enter the building I see Billy sitting cross-legged on the secondhand rug. Not yeerks then, just bored teammates.

Sitting beside him is-

I’m not sure. A teenage human with short brown hair and a red t-shirt. He’s frowning, but he looks up as we enter. He looks familiar. I’ve seen him before, recently.

“Oh, hi guys,” Billy says. “Nate, this is my team. Guys, this is Nate and Vision 002. They’re part of the Yeerk Peace Movement.”

“You brought a Controller here?” David says. His voice practically jumps up an octave in alarm.

“Symbiote,” Nate (or his yeerk) corrects. “You’re David. Belasco 238 is-?”

“Dead,” David answers coldly.

“I’m sorry for your l-“ Nate begins. Billy cuts him off.

“Don’t, Vision.”

Nate’s head turns, and he catches sight of Cassie. He freezes. Beside me, so does she.

“Hi Nate,” Cassie says quietly.

“Hey Cassie,” he answers.

“How’ve you been?”

Nate (presumably, but I stand by the possibility that it’s his yeerk) grasps for an answer. Eventually, he sighs. “I don’t know, Cassie. Everything’s a mess. Yeerks are dying left and right, it’s all the soldiers can do to keep the hosts quiet and out of the news. We’re out of contact with half our members, we don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead.” He grits his teeth, fighting down anger. I may have trouble with a few human emotional reactions, but this is one of the first I learned to recognize. “Tell me you weren’t a part of this.”

Cassie is silent, but doesn’t look ashamed.

“God, Cassie, _why_?”

“It’s them or us, Nate.”

“Yeah, the fact that they’re literally _murdering_ the hosts that escape makes that pretty clear,” David interjects.

“You don’t have to stoop to their level-“ Nate begins, but this time it’s me who interrupts.

“This is a war. Refusing to fight would only make it a slaughter.”

Nate’s face is hard as granite. “You killed innocent people, good yeerks. They weren’t soldiers or generals.”

“What were we supposed to do?” Billy asks. His voice betrays desperation, as if he really wants Nate to come up with a solution. “Yeerks don’t have military bases or army barracks. They’re not attacking; they’re _colonizing_.”

Billy makes a good point, actually. There are no yeerk civilians when their very presence here on Earth is a conquest. It’s a good rhetorical point, although I would have suggested attacking the yeerk pool regardless. The yeerks have no concept of civilians, and neither do the Kree.

“The Yeerk Peace Movement will stop the invasion from the inside,” Nate says, but there’s no enthusiasm in his voice, like he knows his answer is inadequate.

The silence from my teammates reveals that they agree.

Nate presses his hands to his face.

“You can’t- we can’t work with people who will kill indiscriminately. You’re mass-murderers, you know that, right?”

“You’re slavers, and the fact that you and Vision get along doesn’t change that,” David counters.

“Have you ever heard of a war crime?”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure taking over someone’s mind is against the Geneva Convention.”

“David, this isn’t your fight; you weren’t even here for the Kandrona mission,” Billy objects.

“No, but it freed me from Belasco, and I stand by it.”

Nate holds up his hands. “Look, this doesn’t matter. We came here to tell you that the Movement can’t work with you. Your little stunt killed hundreds of people and completely sabotaged our recruiting efforts. Yeerks will be siding with the Empire from sheer self-preservation if they know the alternative is to starve to death.” His eyes glance around the room, lingering on Billy and Cassie in turn. “We’ll still try to change the Yeerk Empire from the inside, but if I catch even a _hint_ that you might do something like this again,” Nate’s eyes darken, and the florescent lights make shadows dance across his face, “I’ll tell the yeerks everything.”

“We know your names. If we’re taken, the yeerks will know about the Peace Movement,” I warn. Kree traitors are not dealt with gently. I can’t imagine yeerks are any more merciful.

“I know,” the Symbiote replies.

Nate is a liability. He just leveled a threat against the lives and freedom of my entire team, but no one moves to stop him.

Ideas and plans whirl in my mind. We could keep him here, starve out the yeerk- but Nate is voluntary, and might follow through on their threat by himself. We could kill both of them, but we’d be cutting off our alliance with the Yeerk Peace Movement, which would cause them to retaliate regardless.

We could declare war on the Peace Movement, but it would only make them fight us harder. We’re backed into a corner. We have to let the Symbiote go.

At least he doesn’t know about our new home base.

-

We spend the better part of the next week settling into our new home. Teddy puts in a couple appearances as “Mr. Danvers” fighting with a lawn mower or organizing the garage, and a couple more appearances as the as-yet-unnamed “Mrs. Danvers”, an older blonde woman who I’m told resembles Teddy’s mother.

David uses Billy’s laptop to check in on the yeerks once a day, waiting to see if anyone notices our presence or the new footnote attached to the house’s records: “in use, under supervision of Subvisser 237.”

Teddy and Kate manage to fill the kitchen with junk food. America takes to hanging around the dirty, rusting swingset in the backyard.

We have three bathrooms and four bedrooms. Cassie, after claiming one bathroom as her own, is the happiest I have seen her.

Teddy and Billy take to retreating to the spare bedroom during the late afternoon, and I am assured by both Kate and David that I don’t want to know what they’re doing in there.

The next seven days come and go with little action. Then, during David’s daily check of the yeerk files, he finds something noteworthy:

“They’re rebuilding,” he reports from the kitchen table. “The new Kandrona will be delivered in two weeks. No mention of where it will be kept.”

He continues his search for the next several days, but additional information fails to materialize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the first arc of The Invasion. The next section, _The Occupation_ , will begin in February.


	14. The Blue Box, part 1: Kamala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blue box Anelle used to create the Animorphs has been found by a kid named Kamala. Kamala has no idea what she has -- or what it can do.

My name is Kamala. This is the part where I tell you that I can’t reveal my last name or my address, but let’s face it: how many people are there in America named Kamala?

Some days, I think it might just be me.

In middle school I tried to use a nickname, something that didn’t stand out as much or get mis-pronounced, but ‘Kamala’ doesn’t even lend well to Americanization. Nakia had ‘Kiki’, at least, but I’d be laughed out of the room if I suggested that someone call me ‘Lala’.

Sorry, I’m losing track of my point. The thing is, I can’t tell you the whole story, because some things could come back to bite me. I don’t just mean my parents would kill me for sneaking out, or that I'd get suspended from school for defacing school property. If this got out, if people knew who I was, I could die. My friends could get hurt.

I can’t let that happen.

Anyway, a lot’s happened in the last week. Sometimes it’s hard to fit my brain around it all. I find myself thinking about yeerks or morphing or going out after dark with a bunch of boys, and it seems like just a story, not something that could really happen to me.

This is how it started…

-

There’s not much to do in _[location redacted_ ] after school. You could go to the park, I guess, or watch a movie, but we don’t usually have the money for movies and the park is just a bunch of grass and snot-nosed kids crying over ice cream.

Nakia and I usually end up bothering Bruno at his job at the Circle Q instead.

So there I am, pressing my face against the glass and wondering if bacon would smell quite as good if I wasn’t forbidden to eat it.

There Nakia is, telling me I’m being dumb by taunting myself with the sweet, sweet smell of convenience –store breakfast sandwiches.

There’s Bruno, agreeing with her (the traitor).

It would have been a normal Friday, nothing noteworthy at all, if Vick hadn’t chosen that moment to stop by.

-

Nakia’s telling Bruno a story about some guy who knocked down a shelf at the supermarket when the door bursts open.

We all jump and stare. The door is pretty heavy. When I’m carrying my freezie in one hand, it can be hard for me to open it at all.

There’s a bell that rings when the front door opens, and right now it’s completely drowned out by the metal door hitting a magazine rack that stands too close to the entrance.

Bruno flinches.

The guy at the door looks freaked out, nervous, and kind of familiar.

“Aw, come on Vick!” Bruno complains, “You’re gunna hurt the merchandise, and guess who’ll have to pay for it?”

“The owner of the Circle Q?” I guess. Bruno rolls his eyes.

“I wish. With that guy’s attitude it’ll come out of my paycheck.”

I haven’t seen Vick too often, but I know the name- it’s Bruno’s brother. His screw-up brother, whose messes Bruno seems to always be cleaning up. So, kind of his family’s version of me.

He smiles, and I see the family resemblance there. Vick adjusts his hold on the duffle bag at his shoulder.

“Not happy to see your brother, Bruno?” he asks.

“You smell like burnt asphalt, where have you been hanging out?” Bruno says with a frown. “Your friends aren’t making meth or something, are they?”

Vick laughs awkwardly. “Nope, not meth.” He shuffles through the junk on the counter, as if he needs to personally touch every gum package and novelty lighter by hand.

Bruno groans. “I’m serious, Vick-“

His brother turns and walks away, pacing through the aisles as if looking for something. “So am I,” he calls from the soda case.

“That guy,” Bruno mutters to us. (“That girl,” I hear Abu say in the same tone of voice.)

Vick comes jogging back to the register with a diet cherry Dr. Pepper, the kind of soda I didn’t think anyone actually drank.  Bruno rings him up in silence.

“Any chance of a family discount?” Vick asks, teasing. Bruno gives him a deadpan stare, and Vick pays full price without complaint.

“Thanks,” he says with a backwards wave as he leaves the Circle Q.

“Be glad you’re an only child, Nakia,” Bruno says.

“Wait,” she replies, staring out the glass door. We follow her gaze. There’s Vick, barely ten feet outside and being stopped by a pair of cops.

Bruno slumps down until his whole upper body is leaning on the counter. “Oh _no_ , what did he do _this_ time?” he laments.

I watch through the glass. Vick looks nervous again, as twitchy as he was when he entered the Circle Q, but the cops haven’t arrested him yet. They’re just asking questions. Vick shakes his head vehemently and shows the cops his empty hands.

Empty…

Where’s his duffle bag?

Maybe I read too much fiction, but a story falls together in my head. Vick comes in, nervous. Vick stashes his duffle bag. Vick leaves without it, confident. The police show up. Vick triumphantly shows his empty hands…

They’re looking for the bag. There’s drugs, or something stolen. I glance at Bruno and Nakia, still staring at the door. The police already suspect Vick. If they find- whatever it is- here, they’ll think Bruno is an accomplice at best. Nakia…

Bad things happen when the police arrest a girl wearing a hijab.

I turn and stroll over to the cooler. Behind me, I hear the bell of the door ring out.

The coolers are in a row, set into the back wall of the Circle Q. The first cooler is for alcohol, the second for juices and iced tea, and the last two for all kinds of soda. I look around desperately.

“Have either of you been down near the Stark house today?” the office at the front of the store demands.

Bruno and Nakia chorus their “no”s.

There! Wedged in behind a 6-pack of Bud Lite is a dirty green bag. I have to open the cooler and move the beer to get it out.

“Uhuh. Well keep it that way! It’s still private property, and when we catch the thug who’s been looting the place-“

I unzip the bag as quietly as I can.

Inside is a box. It’s bright blue, and smooth on each side.

It’s small enough to fit in my backpack.

I take a deep breath, and wonder how mad my parents will be if this backfires and I get arrested.

“Hey Bruno,” I call, “Is this your brother’s bag?”

The officer gets there first, snatching the bag out of my hands. He almost fumbles it, but the bag clanks and sloshes loudly.

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Bruno says from behind him. “Why did he-“ Bruno falls silent as he realizes.

The cop gives Bruno a look, and he rushes over to open the zipper.

Inside is a 6-pack of Bud Light.

Bruno sighs in disappointment. The cop scoffs in disgust.

I back away slowly, and the bell barely rings as I leave.

-

I probably shouldn’t have stuck my neck out like that, and I’ve probably made myself a drug mule. The whole walk home I keep an eye out for somewhere to stash the box, but it occurs to me that it’s probably covered with my fingerprints.

Could they find me from that? Are the police following me even now? I don’t look back. Looking back is suspicious.

I make my excuses to Abu and Ammi, mumbling something about getting some homework done before bed, and that’s enough to get me up to my room with a minimum of drama.

I open the backpack.

The box sits between my limited edition Ms. Marvel lunchbox and my history binder.

Away from the florescent lights of the Circle Q, the box seems to glow softly. I don’t think there’s a light bulb in there, but it reminds me of the glow-in-the-dark stars I used to have on my ceiling.

I have no idea what it is.

I guess if Vick scavenged it from the old Stark house, it could be anything.

It’s warm in my hands as I turn it over and over, looking for a label or a ‘made in china’ etched into the surface. There’s nothing. I can’t even decide whether it’s made of glass or plastic.

**_What do you want?_ **

I want this box out of my life. I want Vick to have never dumped it at the Circle Q, and I want to have had more sense than to get involved in this whole-

Wait. Something is off about this. That wasn’t my thought, was it?

**_You want to go back?_ **

There it is. I’m alone in my room, but I could have _sworn_ … Was that my own thought, or did I hear someone ask a question?

 ** _What do you want?_** It asks again.

Something else it putting words into my head.

Sometimes when I’m busy on my computer or doing homework or writing… well. When I’m busy and Ammi is trying to talk to me, her words kind of get incorporated into my thoughts, and I end up typing what she's saying instead of my own thoughts into the computer.

This feels kind of the same.

“What are you?” I whisper to the box, feeling kind of silly. Maybe I’m just making this up. I did want to have an adventure.

 ** _I am the Cosmic Cube_** it responds. **_What do you want?_**

I think for a moment. These stories never end well. _Don’t rush in, don’t be greedy or jealous_ , I remind myself.

“What can you do?”

-

This is the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me in the history of _ever_.

I mean, it wasn’t so exciting at first. I spent the next morning chasing after pigeons and stray cats and wondering if I might have hallucinated the whole conversation.

Once I realized that you can pet the animals on sale at the Pet Corral, it got _way_ more exciting.

Do you know how much a ferret can smell? How fast a finch can fly? Do you know what it’s like to race, as a rabbit, through gardens and under fences?

Probably not. Who does, right?

 _Me_.

-

Look, I know I’m a teenage cliché, right? I get superpowers and the first thing I do is use them to sneak out to a party? Don’t give me that look, you know you’d have done it, too.

I don’t even like Zoe, really. She only talks to me and Nakia out of a weird patronizing white guilt. But she’s making an effort to be friendly, and isn’t outright rude, so I feel weird rejecting her offers.

Which is why I’m here. At a party. With boys and alcohol and only, like, one other person I know.

I can’t tell how many people are there, only that it’s probably more than thirty and less than a hundred. They’re all milling around, and it’s dark enough that the people hanging around the edges of the group sometimes just fade into the night.

Ke$ha is booming from speakers set into the back of someone’s pickup truck. A couple small knots of people are hanging around on the docks, but most of the dancers stay in the lot next-door, well away from the water.

“Kamala, your parents let you come?” Zoe squeals over the blaring music.

“Um, yeah,” I mumble. They didn’t, and they’d kill me for coming at all, but I can’t tell Zoe that. She already thinks my parents are like prison guards.

She says something else, thanking me for coming or hoping I’ll have a good time. I’m not sure, straining to hear over _Your Love is My Drug_. She swans off with her boyfriend, disappearing into the crowd.

“That’s alcoholic,” someone warns me when I grab a drink from the plastic card table. When I turn around, it’s Bruno standing there, looking concerned. My throat aches in embarrassment. Stupid Kamala, can’t even go to a party like a normal kid. I kind of want to throw the drink in his face. I kind of want to chug it down, just to show that I _can_. I don’t do either of those things. Instead, I put the plastic cup down on the table and walk away.

He follows me.

“Do your parents really know you’re here?” he asks.

“Is that any of your business?” I reply.

“I just want to help-“

“Yeah, Bruno, you’re really _helpful_ ,” I spit. It probably isn’t fair to him, but I just want to be normal for one freaking night! I don’t want people to stare at me and be surprised I’m here at all. I don’t want them to be impressed that I escaped the shackles of my religion or whatever bullshit they think. I don’t want concerned friends or patronizing classmates, I just wanted to listen to shitty music and drink sugary soda and maybe dance a little.

‘ _This was a terrible idea_ ,’ I think.

Then Zoe falls into the water.

Someone screams, and her boyfriend is just standing there looking dazed. The other kids are getting agitated, and I’m sure the people who can’t actually see the water have no idea what’s going on.

Zoe’s flailing, struggling to keep her head above the waterline.

I wonder if she’s been drinking. I wonder how alcohol affects your ability to swim.

No one makes a move.

I jump in.

The water is freezing cold, and my clothes absorb the water and try to drag me down. Okay, this is much harder than it looks. Swimming in my burkini in my cousin’s pool is very different than swimming in three layers of cotton in the middle of the night in February.

I just got superpowers, and I can’t even save a drunk girl from drowning. What can I do? It’s not like I can turn into a dolphin.

But, wait. Dolphins aren’t the only animals who can swim. And a fur coat sounds awesome right now.

Everyone on the dock is either staring at me or Zoe right now, so I swim under the wooden boards to hide myself from view as I morph.

Morphing in the water was a terrible idea. My fingers can’t keep a grip on the wooden dock supports, they’re too slimy and the cold is making me lose feeling in my hands.

I try to tread water instead. As my neck shortens, my face juts out, and I can’t keep my head above water anymore. I take a deep breath and hope I can hold it long enough.

My fingers shrivel up. My nails lengthen and thicken into claws. My legs shorten, and my ankle moves up as my legs become digitigrade.

My tailbone lengthens, and then, finally, the fur comes.

I emerge, a sopping wet golden retriever, from under the dock.

Zoe’s making a gurgling sound, but her arms are still splashing around. That’s a good sign, probably. If she can still flail, she’s alive.

I doggy-paddle over, and somehow my wet fur doesn’t pull me down as much as my clothes did. I circle Zoe, trying to figure out how to help her. Can a dog really hold her up? What if she pulls me under? I don’t think the dog can hold its breath.

I paddle a bit closer, and her arm hits the water just inches from my side. Almost.

All of her splashing is sending water away from her, pushing me back. It’s hard to inch toward her. I can either stay several feet away, or collide with her.

Well I can’t just leave her there. I pick collision.

I hit her chest with my soggy dog head, and her arms immediately reach for me. I start to sink.

Panic and water rush around me as I fall under the water.

I cycle my doggy legs, but it doesn’t help.

Then, Zoe remembers she has legs, too. She starts paddling, and we break the surface again. I’m pretty buoyant now that she’s helping to keep us afloat, and together we start to make our way back to the shore.

She coughs and cries when her friends drag her out of the shallows. Two girls in mud-stained dresses coo over me and call me a ‘good doggie’, and for a minute that’s what I am: a golden retriever soaking up the praise and enjoying getting petted. Then I remember that I’m Kamala, a human, and I need to go home.

The girls call after me when I run off into the night, leaving a trail of salt water behind me.

I’m dry when I demorph, so at least that’s one less thing to explain to my parents when they catch me climbing in through my bedroom window several minutes later.

-

My brother would be devastated if he knew that I got weird magic powers and didn’t immediately consult the Quran.

That’s okay, though. Abu and Ammi aren’t satisfied with reaming me out for sneaking away to Zoe’s party on Saturday, and they send me to talk to Sheik Abdullah so he can finish the job.

Maybe “I’m really sorry, I know I shouldn’t have disobeyed my parents, can I go now?” wasn’t a good opener.

“If you have ever met me, you know it will not be so simple a conversation,” Sheik Abdullah replies. He smiles, though, which strikes me as weird. Shouldn’t he be yelling about Satan and boys and Satanic boys about now?

“Shouldn’t you be yelling about Satan and boys and Satanic boys about now?” I ask.

“Would that help?”

“No, but I mean-“ I’m not sure what I mean.

“You understand that what you’ve done has hurt your family, who trust you and want the best for you.”

“Yes,” I mumble.

“Good, now it’s my task to see that you get help.”

I know I’m supposed to be respectful, but I can’t help the look that crosses my face.

“If something is wrong, I want to try to help you,” he explains.

I’m not sure what to say to that. Nothing’s _wrong_ (except maybe _me_ ).

Sheik Abdullah waits patiently. He looks unfairly serene as the seconds tick by and I get less and less comfortable with the silence.

“I don’t know how to talk about this, and I’m not sure how much you’d believe,” I start. Somehow I don’t think ‘I became a superhero with magic powers’ will cut it. I try to think of my adventures in the simplest terms. “I have these… skills. I can do things that no one else can do. I want to use them to help people.” He raises his thick grey eyebrows and prompts me to continue. “I just need some practice, I guess.”

“You help people,” he echoes.

“Yeah.”

“And these skills…?”

“Not smutty or immodest, I _swear_ \- _and oh no I just said ‘smutty’ to a Sheik oh no_!”

“Calm yourself,” he says once I’ve almost hyperventilated in my seat. “We are all called to use our skills. So long as you are using these gifts with honor and conscientiousness, I see no issue.”

And that’s the story of how a Sheik encouraged me to become a superhero.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have _the Invasion_ 's answer to book #20: _The Discovery_. Themes also borrowed heavily from Issues #1, #3 and #6 of _Ms. Marvel._
> 
> If anyone's scared, I promise she's not going to be David.


	15. The Blue Box, part 2: Billy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs have a short break after the destruction of the Kandrona, but are quickly thrown back into action when rumors of a human shape-shifter spreads along the yeerks.

It felt weird at first to settle back into normal life. That week we destroyed the Kandrona turned my life into an action movie with no intermission. In contrast, these last few weeks have been quiet, even peaceful. At first I didn’t know what to do with myself. Every time a phone rang I jumped, ready to morph hawk and meet up with the others, but the call never came.

There were no missions. No secret yeerk plans. It seemed like we really did some damage, forced them to retreat. I went to school, did my homework on time, and ran up the phone bill talking to Teddy at all hours of the night, just like I did before.

It’s hard for me to remember what I used to do with my free time. Video games, I guess? The others seem to the having the same problem, because it didn’t take long for the whole team to start congregating at Noh-Varr’s house after school. I know Cassie and David live there, but somehow it feels more like Noh-Varr’s. I guess it's because David and Cassie have other homes here on Earth, even if they can’t go back until we defeat the yeerks. With them, there’s a sense of impermanence in their living situation. I haven’t seen Cassie’s room, but David’s looks like a hotel room. It’s all neat and orderly, with just one duffle bag full of stuff we managed to grab from his house while his parents were at work.

It can get pretty dull over there, even with eleven people hanging around (and holy shit, that’s a lot! Remember when we were just  six kids?). Noh-Varr started getting a look in his eye and watching too much HGTV, so I donated my Wii to the cause before he decided to knock down any walls.

This action was totally out of the goodness of my heart, and not at all because when the others are distracted, Teddy and I can sneak upstairs to make out.

Really, we’re only making up for lost time! The last month has been a whirlwind of mission after crisis after anxiety attack. In all the excitement, we’ve had exactly zero opportunities to be alone.

-well, mostly alone. Loki doesn’t count, in this context.

‘I am a yeerk. We reproduce by fission. Guess how much interest I have in mammalian mating rituals?’ ze asks rhetorically. ‘That’s right, none.’

It’s still creepy when Loki responds to my emotions without me ever saying anything to zir.

Teddy’s lips disappear from my neck. He pushes himself off of me with one muscular arm. My eyes linger on the way the dim light casts shadows on his triceps.

“Are you ok?” He asks.

“I will be if you go back to what you were doing.”

Teddy lingers there, his gaze locked with mine. He looks like he’s searching for something, some hint that I’m lying or freaking out. He doesn’t find it, and instead he smiles and leans into my kiss.

My libido completely disappears when I’m anxious. I didn’t really think about how that was for Teddy, relegated to close-mouthed kisses, hand-holding, and hugs. Still, Teddy never complained.

Now that we’re safe, that things have settled down, my hormones suddenly remember that I’m sixteen and dating a massive hottie. We’ve been hiding in the spare bedroom for an hour. I wonder when the others will notice we’re gone.

‘ _They’re not oblivious. They avoid this room out of self-preservation_ ,’ my yeerk says.

Loki’s presence doesn’t bother us much, which is either a testament to how strange our lives have gotten, how much Loki has integrated into my life, or the overwhelming strength of teenage hormones. I’ve made it clear that zir sarcastic commentary is not welcome when I’m alone with Teddy, so ze mostly keeps to the back on my mind. It’s a good system.

-

I don’t think we’ve ever had this much downtime since gaining the power to morph. Tommy’s definitely taking advantage of it, and every day at lunch he leans over the table to whisper the story of what he got up to last night. This time he morphed peregrine and flew to the next town over. Whispered thought-speak at some kids who were trying to catch a stray cat. Freaked out the locals.

“You’re going to give someone a heart attack,” Eli tells him. He pokes at his school lunch, which today consists of stale corn chips, a dome of freeze-dried ground beef, and an orange gelatinous liquid they claim is ‘cheese sauce’.

“You know, you used to be fun before the alien invasion stole your sense of humor,” Tommy replies, gesturing at Eli with his plastic spoon.

“Hey Serrure?”

The sophomore sitting across from me looks up, momentarily confused at being addressed by someone outside our circle of friends. A pretty blonde junior is standing behind him, looking concerned. She looks familiar, but nothing specific comes to mind.

‘Karolina and Xavin 216,’ Loki supplies.

A Controller. My stomach freezes. It’s been weeks since a yeerk threat, but not long enough for my nerves to forget. But, then again- the yeerk pool was decimated. Hundreds of hosts were freed. If Karolina is still around, and wasn’t lured into the hospital to be killed or re-infested, she might be free. And if she knew Serrure was a host, too…

Maybe we have more allies than we thought.

Serrure’s indecision shows on his face, but he does get up and allows Karolina to lead him away for their conversation. The cafeteria doors swing shut behind them, and the rest of us are left to wait for his return.

“Lighten up,” my brother continues, undaunted. “I’m just messing around. I bet Teddy did all kinds of dumb stuff with his morphing, right Teddy?”

My boyfriend shrugs, causing the arm he has wrapped around me to rub against my back.

“Not a lot, actually. Mom was always really adamant that we didn’t draw attention to ourselves. I don’t think the Skrulls morph into non-sentient animals very often, anyway. Mostly I just messed around with my human form.”

“Messed around with your-?” Kate asks.

Tommy wiggles his eyebrows at her.

“Ugh,” Kate declares. “ _Boys_. I don’t want to know.”

“It wasn’t-“ Teddy starts, “I- Look, I just have to age my body up every couple months, right? Because morphs don’t age naturally.”

“Oh,” Kate says thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”

“Come on, if you expect me to believe a healthy teenage boy hasn’t experimented with-“ Luckily, whatever Tommy was about to say is cut off by Serrure’s return.

“So?” America prompts when Serrure doesn’t immediately speak.

“She’s part of the Yeerk Peace Movement,” Serrure says quietly, drumming his fingers on the table top. “She still thinks I’m Loki’s host. I guess Nate was serious about keeping quiet.”

“What did she want?” I ask. “I thought they were cutting off contact.”

Serrure shakes his head. “She didn’t want anything. She was warning me. The yeerks have been hearing rumors of a teenage shape-shifter running around.” Serrure pauses, and I know I’m not going to like what he says next. “Specifically, a human-to-animal morpher.”

“I was careful!” Tommy hisses when I glance in his direction. “I’m not morphing out in the open, you know!”

I believe him, I do. Even though Tommy is often the least subtle of us, he’s never been that sloppy.

I look away, and accidentally meet America’s eyes. She’s frowning, which isn’t unusual, but the time we’ve spent as teammates allows me to see a bit more than just her displeasure. She’s worried, and somehow reluctant. I’m not sure what she’s thinking-

“It wasn’t us,” Loki 645 says through my mouth. “It’s only by astounding coincidence and entirely too much luck that I stand before you. I’ve come too far to be playing both sides against the middle.” Ze shrugs, falsely casual, “Also, Billy would have noticed me using his morphing to show off in public.”

Eli nods. “Okay, say it wasn’t any of us. Then who-?”

Kate leans over the table to nudge Teddy. “Could it be another Skrull?”

Teddy shifts against me, and I can tell he’s uncomfortable .

“Maybe?” he eventually replies. “I mean, mom always said we’re the only Skrulls on Earth, but she also thinks we’re the only _aliens_ on Earth, so I guess there could be others…”

“Some other Skrull kid, hiding out as a human like you?” Tommy asks. “How likely is that?”

Teddy shrugs. “Look, I probably know less about Skrulls than Noh-Varr does. All I know is that some political drama happened that meant me and mom weren’t welcome in space anymore, so we hid out here.”

“So maybe the drama chased out someone else,” Kate summarizes. “Great.”

“Karolina and Xavin gave me the name of the Controller who saw it happen,” Serrure offers. “We could check it out.”

It’s been too quiet these last few weeks. We’ve all been waiting for the next crisis. It’s almost a relief that this one isn’t immediately life-threatening.

I glance around the table. It’s clear we’re all on board.

-

Dr. Gutierrez works at a pharmacy 30 miles away. Kate’s car won’t fit all of us, so she drives the non-morphers while the rest of us take to the skies. 30 miles is a long way, even for birds of prey, and  it’d be too conspicuous to fly in a group.

Thank goodness for Google Maps, is all I’m saying.

Tommy is already perched on a powerline when I arrive, with Teddy close behind. We take turns ducking behind bushes to demorph and remorph. We haven't spent two hours in morph yet, but it’s always smart to take the opportunities we have to reset our time in morph.

America and Eli arrive while Tommy is morphing, and Serrure brings up the rear in his magpie morph around the one-hour point.

Kate and her passengers arrive last, parking in front of the grocery store across the way.

‘ _I guess it really is faster to travel as the crow flies_ ,’ Loki 645 quips.

‘ _Is that a reference to something_?’ I ask. Loki 645 only has contact with human pop culture through us, so- ‘ _You must’ve gotten that from Serrure, ‘cause I don’t get it._ ’

‘ _Philestine_.’

“Anything interesting?” Kate asks, holding her cellphone up to her face as a decoy.

< _Well he took a smoke break a couple minutes ago, and let me tell you, those things are truly disgusting, >_ Tommy reports.

“Great, thanks,” Kate replies sarcastically. “You guys stay on that, we’ll go on foot and ask around.”

< _You’re not going to ask random humans if they’ve seen a shape-shifter, are you? >_ Eli asks.

“Yeah, totally,” Kate answers, turning her head to glance at the condor perched on a McDonald’s roof. “I even got ‘Have You Seen This Werewolf?’ posters printed.”

< _If Found, Please Return to Visser Three_ ,> Serrure chimes in.

< _Reward Offered: Your very own brain-slug_ ,> Tommy continues.

< _I didn’t ask either of you_ ,> Eli retorts.

“Let him know we’ve got it handled,” David says to Kate, still pretending that Kate is having a phone conversation instead of speaking to telepathic birds.

“Dav- _Daniel_ says to fuck off and do your job,” Kate reports, and dramatically pretends to hang up.

“That was mature,” Cassie says. She and David dyed her hair a light brown last weekend, and she runs her hands through it self-consciously. Noh-Varr went blond, and boy, is that weird to see.

Each of the non-morphers (and Kate) sport backpacks and spiral notebooks. Once Kate is done snarking at Eli, they scatter in different directions to find other witnesses of this rogue morpher.

The pharmacy is boring, and nothing of note happens. People go in. People pick up their prescriptions. People leave. People go in. People loiter by the candy section, only to dart over, grab condoms, pay, and leave. People go in- and so on.

David goes down the street at first, but makes his way back toward us over the next hour. He eventually makes it all the way back to the video store across the street, where some unlucky minimum wage employee is stuck waving a sign advertising ‘GREAT Prices! HUGE Selection!”

“Hey, I’m doing a project for my Earth Science class, can I ask you a few questions?” David asks, sounding much more chipper and polite than I’ve ever seen.

The guy waving the sign gives him an odd look. “Uh. I just work at the video store.”

“That’s fine,” David continues, undaunted. “We’re researching the effects of pollution on the local watershed. Have you seen any wildlife acting odd lately? Birds where they shouldn’t be, dogs acting strangely, that sort of thing?”

“I don’t think so, unless you count my weird-ass neighbor. He might as well be wildlife,” the guy answers. He smiles, inviting David in on the joke. His amusement fades when David doesn’t return his smile. He tries to salvage the conversation. “Hey, yeah. I did see a huge black bird flying around here a couple minutes ago- never seen anything like it!”

David pretends to jot down notes in his notebook, thanks the man, and moves on.

< _Eli, you need a morph that’s less conspicuous_ ,> I tell him.

< _America is a **swan**_ ,> he replies.

< _And now, the thrilling conclusion to our stakeout: Dr. Gutierrez smokes another cigarette and drives home_ ,> Tommy announces as the target of our attention finals shows himself.

< _What do we do now? >_ Serrure asks.

< _Well if we ask nicely, maybe America will buzz the car, >_ Tommy suggests.

< _He’d crash_ ,> America points out.

< _Yeah, that’s the point_. > It’s hard to tell if Tommy’s joking. Is this just mean-spirited humor, or an actual suggestion disguised with a mocking tone?

< _We’re not killing an innocent human! >_ Teddy yells.

< _He’s a Controller, >_ Serrure says. He doesn’t seem to be disagreeing with Teddy, just adding his comment to see what it will do to the conversation.

< _He could be a Symbiote for all we know_ ,> Eli adds.

< _So_? > Tommy asks. My stomach churns. He can’t. He’s my brother. Tommy isn’t the most compassionate person in the world, but he’s never been this bloodthirsty or callous before.

< _We’re not in the business of killing people for being yeerk hosts_ ,> America says firmly.

< _Aren’t we_? > That hurts. It’s a jab at the worst (or, possibly, the best) thing this team has ever done. But as painful as it is, it also a relief: that’s not the bitter retort of someone who’s been told off- that’s wry. That’s ironic. That’s Tommy being a little shit, suggesting a terrible idea so that we’d strike it down immediately.

Well, that’s one way to clear the air.

 Kate appears at the corner, the same one where Dr. Gutierrez took his smoke breaks.

She pulls out her phone and pretends to dial.

“Hey Eli, yeah, I got a good response from a guy over at the Circle Q. I’m thinking we should head over there and continue the project.”

< _Got it. We’ll demorph to reset the time limit and meet you there_. >

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started using the [Hemingway editor](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/) on these chapters. Make of that what you like.


	16. The Blue Box, part 3: Kamala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamala almost gets eaten by a cat, and meets a team of superheroes.

I am totally fine.

I can handle this.

It’s just a cat, the stray orange tabby that I see wandering around the area on my way to and from school. I know this, and I’ve never thought to be afraid of it.

< _AHHHHHHHHHHHH!_ > I scream.

The finch brain is _terrified_. Its fear washes over me, and I’m swept away in the urgency of it. The cat leaps toward me. The finch dodges, its wings turning slightly to catch the air and go _with_ its momentum instead of against it.

< _Um. Hello. Are you one of Anelle’s people_? >

The cat lands gracefully on four feet while the finch struggles to avoid hitting a stop sign. This isn’t fair. I’m not even used to flying yet! My first week as a superhero and I’m going to get eaten by a cat.

< _Hello? Fellow Skrull_? >

There’s someone talking nearby, but they’re not making much sense, so I ignore them. I perch on the stop sign and look down at the cat. It can’t reach me up here, right?

< _Wow, that finch is totally ignoring you_. >

The cat paces the concrete below me, waiting. I can just fly away, can’t I? How high can cats jump?

< _Tommy, I swear_ ->

The cat looks away from me, and for a moment I hope it’s lost interest. Then it leaps onto the bench a few feet away and I realize what it’s doing: making its way to me.

< _Finch! I said finch! It’s the kind of bird_! >

Wait, what did that guy just say? I take my eyes off the cat for just a moment, glancing around to figure out who’s talking. There’s an old couple having an argument in front of the Circle Q, and a few people waiting for the bus nearby, but no one who matches the voices I heard.

So who-?

< _I think it heard you_. >

< _Look out_! >

Something moves in my peripheral vision, and the finch brain has the presence of mind to take flight as the cat pounces form its perch.

My wings hit sky, then-

Teeth! Pain! Terror!

I’m in the cat’s mouth. We’re falling through the air, and I scream the whole way down. The cat’s paws hit concrete. The landing is soft enough for the predator, but it’s much rougher on its prey: the landing jars the cat’s teeth, which bite harder into my finch body. I try to spread my wings, try to lash out with my talons, but my wings press against my sides, and my feet claw uselessly at the air.

The cat turns this way and that, deciding where to take its prey to eat.

< _Demorph_! > one of the voices yells.

I try to think about my own body. Human. Brown hair. Short. Curved nose- but the pain in my sides distracts me. The warm wetness of the cat’s mouth is my entire world, and my whole body vibrates with every breath the tabby takes.

I’m done for. All of this excitement, only to die in the mouth of a housecat, hearing disembodied voices.

< _Demorph, you dumb alien_! > the other disembodied voice screams.

Is this like the blue cube? She told me not to stay in morph for longer than two hours- is it because I’ll start hearing voices? Is this a warning system?

< _Oh for fuck’s sake- >_

I’m going to die being yelled at by weird alien voices.

I’m still screaming.

Something else happens- I can’t see but the cat chomps harder on my ribcage and I think I feel something break. We’re tumbling through the air, both of us. Now the cat is running, every step hurts my wings, my tail, my fragile bird-bones.

I see black.

Everything that isn’t the cat’s ginger fur is black. I wonder what will happen when I die. Will my body shift back? Will anyone find Kamala, lying on the sidewalk next to a confused cat? Or will I just disappear? Will my family ever know what happened to me?

The blackness moves.

It isn’t the void of death or my eyes giving up hope- it’s feathers. I see wings outlined against the sky. The cat is fighting something. Something with a hard, shark beak and a bald head.

Then the angel appears. White wings and graceful neck, and I wonder if swans are angels for birds. Is this what the finch sees when it dies? How else would there be a swan downtown? The teeth release me, and my bird body lies on the ground. The larger birds, one black, one white, have chased away my tormenter.

Am I dying? Am I dead?

Is this bird-heaven? It seems weirdly symbolic.

< _Are you okay? >_ the swan asks.

I’m talking to a bird. I can talk to birds.

< _Demorph_ ,> the black bird demands. < _Demorph or you’ll bleed out._ >

I don’t question how the bird knows about morphing. This is _my_ weird vision, and I am talking to birds.

< _No, not here_! > a third voice calls from further away. < _We don’t need a Skrull showing up in the middle of the street._ >

< _You got a better idea_? > How many birds are watching me die?

< _Actually, yes_ ,> My bird eyes aren’t focusing well, so I don’t really see the hawk until it’s upon me, scooping me up in its claws and smoothly continuing its flight. Brownish feathers are all I can see.

Ok, this has gone too far.

< _Bad bird_! > I yell. < _I’m not food_! >

Bleeding out on the sidewalk is one thing. Being torn apart by that hooked beak seems like a terrible way to die.

< _Oh, so you **can** talk, >_one of the other birds says.

Only I would dream up sarcastic birds. What a way to die.

But the hawk doesn’t bring me to a nest or a tree to devour me. Instead, it lands on the flat roof of the nearby laundromat and places me down gently.

< _Demorph_ ,> it tells me.

< _I heard you the first time_ ,> I say. If I could concentrate on that, I would.

< _Hey_ ,> a voice says, and oh. The swan is back. I like the swan. I stare at the way the sun hits white feathers, the shadows that are more purple than grey. < _Hey_ ,> the swan repeats. < _What’s your name_? >

The bird wants to know my name. Birds have names?

< _Kamala_ ,> I tell it.

< _Kamala, you’re not a bird_ ,> the swan tells me. < _You’re a person_. >

< _Birds are people, too_ ,> I object. Okay, I think I might be delirious.

I think the other birds are laughing. There’s definitely a black and white hawk-looking thing over there laughing.

< _What do you look like, Kamala_? > The swan asks.

< _Dumb_ ,> I mumble. The swan is silent, so I continue. < _I’ve got brown hair and brown skin and I’m not tall and my nose is all weird and I’m not even skinny like Nakia, and_ ->

< _Human_ ,> the hawk who brought me here breathes in wonder.

  1.   < _Human_ ,> I repeat, and I realize that my body is starting to change. I’m growing, my legs stretching out, my wings spreading across the dirty rooftop.



< _Keep going_ ,> the swan urges. < _Who are you_? >

There’s hope nestled in my chest now, and the bitterness of death begins to fade.

< _I’m Kamala, >_ I repeat. < _I’m sixteen. I like superheroes and My Little Pony and **I am human**_ **,** >

My feathers wither away. Hair, brown hair, human hair sprouts from my head and falls into my face, and I’m so happy to see it that I laugh.

The pain in my chest is gone, and when I bring my arm around to touch it, I have hands.

There’s red blood on the roof, tiny splashes where a finch almost died, but there’s none on me.

The birds are still here.

“Okaaaaay,” I drawl. “So the birds are real.”

< _How did you get the power to morph_? > the big black vulture-looking bird asks.

“Um.” I glance around, wondering how I’m going to get off the roof. “How did I get the power to talk to birds?”

The black and white hawk continues to laugh.

< _It’s thought-speech_ ,> says another bird. This one isn’t a hawk, it looks more like a crow. I decide I like the non-predatory birds best. < _You can’t talk to regular birds. Just people in morph_. >

“You’re human like me?” I wonder. “You were yelling about aliens earlier.”

< _Yeah, we thought you might be- look, usually only Skrulls can morph like this. How is it that you can_? >

I feel like maybe I shouldn’t tell the psychic birds about my life of crime.

“I’m not sure,” I tell them, which is kind of true.

< _Was it a dying space alien_? > asks the black-and-white hawk. < _Cause that’s what it was for us_. >

“Definitely not.”

The vulture is not impressed with my answer, but he changes the subject anyway. < _Your subtlety needs work. People are noticing there’s a morpher in the area._ >

That thought is a little scary, but a little bit exciting, too. People noticed me. People know there’s  a superhero around.

“Cool,” I breathe.

< ** _Not_** _cool_ ,> the crow-thing corrects. I need some names  (or at least species) here. < _The yeerks have heard of you. And if you’re oblivious enough to almost get killed by a housecat, they’re going to find you sooner rather than later_. >

Yeerks?

The insult hurts, and I admit, I get a little indignant. Morphing is hard! It takes practice! No one becomes a superhero overnight!

“I thought I was doing pretty well,” I mutter.

< _You were, but unfortunately you can’t afford to be clumsy, >_ another voice tells me. I look around the roof, but there’s only the five birds I’ve met. I look up. A huge eagle is circling above.

Wow. I’m almost as impressed by the wildlife as I am with the telepathy. We don’t get a whole lot of fauna in the city.

“Why not?” I ask. “What’s so bad about people knowing I exist?”

< _You don’t know_? > The vulture asks.

“Obviously not.”

< _The yeerks will find you_ ,> the brown hawk tells me, which is not helpful.

“The what-now?”

< _Yeerks_ ,> the other hawk says. < _Parasitic slugs that crawl into your ear and hijack your brain. Alien invaders. >_

That sounds ridiculous. Like science fiction. I’ve read more realistic Twilight Sparkle fanfiction.

But then again, I’m a superhero.

< _You can’t just keep morphing in public like this_ ,> the vulture continues. < _If the yeerks find out that it’s possible for humans to be morph-capable, we’re all in trouble. >_

< _We could train her_ ,> the black-and-white hawk suggests. < _get her used to morphing so she’ll be more low-key_. >

“Who are you people?” I demand.

The swan flutters her wings to get the attention of the other birds.

< _We’re the Animorphs_ ,> she says.

They’re superheroes, too. It’s like Ms. Marvel being invited to join the Avengers.

This is just a little twist to my origin story. I can work with this.

< _Guys_? > the eagle interrupts, < _Kate’s found something weird. We might want to check it out_. >

There’s a pause, and then he continues.

< _We could take her with us? No better way to learn than on-the-job, right?_ >

It doesn’t really make sense, and I feel like I’m missing part of a conversation. Did one of the other birds say something?

The vulture cocks his head and looks at me with a piercing stare. < _Well, are you coming with us_? >

Ms. Marvel would say yes, and so do I.

-

I’m a little reluctant to go back to my finch morph, but there’s no other way for me to follow the others. I’m not sure where we’re going, but the eagle (Teddy, his name is Teddy) seems to be following directions that only he can hear. I wonder if this is another telepathy thing.

The black-and-white hawk-

< ** _Falcon_** >, Tommy corrects when I say this aloud, < _I’m a peregrine falcon_! >

-gets bored of waiting for me several minutes into our flight and decides that it’d go much faster if he carried me.

He warns me before the talons closed around me, but my tiny finch heart beats so hard I think it might die.

Could I demorph in time to survive a heart-attack?

I try to calm the finch brain, but there’s only so much it can take. Finches are prey animals; their anxiety keeps them alive.

I’m relieved when Tommy finally releases me a few miles away.

< _So what are we doing here_? > I ask.

“Hey, does your new friend know she’s projecting publically?” a teenager asks into her cellphone several feet away. I don’t realize she’s talking to us until Eli (the ~~vulture~~ condor) answers.

< _Apparently not_. >

< _Me_? > I squeak. What have I done now?

< _You’re announcing to the world everything you say in thought-speak,_ > Tommy-the-peregrine-falcon explains to me. < _You gotta quiet down or someone will notice. >_

< _How do I do that_? > I ask. I try imagining myself whispering.

< _Ok that just changed the tone, not the audience_ ,> Billy-the-brown-hawk tells me. At least, I’m pretty sure he’s the brown hawk. There seems to be seven voices for six birds, so I might’ve gotten confused somewhere.

< _Imagine private messaging instead of public posting_ ,> Teddy-the-eagle suggests.

“Awesome, internet metaphors,” the girl mutters into her cell phone.

That does make more sense. So it’s not the volume that’s the problem, but the recipient?

I imagine a bubble surrounding the birds and me, keeping my words from the rest of the world.

< _How’s this_? > I ask.

< _Well we can still hear it_ ,> Teddy answers. < _Kate_? >

“Sorry, can you say that again?” the girl asks her phone. “I didn’t catch that.”

< _Awesome, you picked that up fast_! > Tommy cheers. My little finch heart warms. Yeah! I’m good at this.

I imagine my circle widening to include Kate-the-human. < _So what are we doing here_? >

< _Recon_ ,> Eli answers. < _Kate and our other friends found the local yeerk recruitment site while they were looking for you. This will get you familiar with missions, and hopefully we can sabotage their operation without much risk._ >

Looking for me? How many people were looking for me?

Kate-the-human laughs at nothing and tosses her hair. She moves to be facing a different direction.

“So what’ve you got? Just the finch?”

She must be talking to me, but I’m not sure what she’s asking.

< _Uh_ …>

< _Morphs_ ,> Serrure the ~~crow~~ magpie clarifies.  < _She can’t be too specific, because she’s talking out loud. What other morphs do you have_? >

< _Oh. I can turn into a ferret, a rabbit, a cat, and a golden retriever_. >

< _Ok, so Kamala is the littlest petshop_ ,> Tommy summarizes. < _What can we do with that?_ >

“Well first you guys should go change, because you look incredibly conspicuous like that,” Kate interrupts.

< _Pigeons_? > Tommy asks.

< _Pigeons_ ,> America-the-swan replies.

< _Okay. Kamala, stay with Kate for a minute, we’ll be back_. >

I hop behind a parked car and start demorphing immediately. Being a finch around birds of prey is not fun.

< _Uh, not to be a buzz-kill_ ,> says the peregrine falcon named Tommy, < _But I kinda promised my uncle I’d be home at a reasonable time tonight._ >

< _Since when do you have family together time_? > America the swan asks.

< _Since he got partial custody of my cousin. I’m not sure if he actually wants me around, or it just looks good to the court_. >

< _I’m sure Pietro wants you around_ ,> Billy, who I think is the red-shouldered hawk, assures Tommy.

< _Whatever, all I’m saying is I gotta go_. >

“I should probably get _America’s Most Wanted_ back home, too. I feel like we’re tempting fate having those three run around in plain sight for too long,” announces the single human among us.

< _Ok. We’ll pick this up later, then_. _We should probably get going before the sun sets. This morph doesn’t have the best night vision_ ,> Eli the Condor says.

We make our goodbyes, and six birds set off into the sky.

Kate and I watch them go.

“Congratulation on the superpowers, by the way,” she tells me with a wry grin.

“Thanks.”

“Give me your phone.”

I pull out my cell and hand it to her. Why does she need it? Is she going to break it and tell me that it’s a liability? Do they have alien anti-tracking technology?

She types something into it and hands it back.

“You have my number if you need anything.”

Oh. Ok. I have contact info for a super-hero. _Nice_.

I walk home slowly, letting the events of the day sink in.

There are others like me. A team of superheroes. They have an enemy: evil aliens. They want me to help them, to learn from them.

This is the best day ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those times that you see a train wreck about to happen.


	17. The Blue Box, part 4: Kamala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamala's first mission with the Animorphs doesn't go as planned.  
> Also Deadpool.

The Animorphs meet me at the park near my house. It’s weird to see them as humans. I didn’t expect Eli to be as short as me, or Tommy and Billy to be identical twins. Teddy is just as friendly in-person as he sounds over though-speak, though. Just a big, nerdy teddy bear. I wonder if he has a tumblr.

I also get to meet Kate’s non-morphers, the ones she had to drive up here to meet me. There’s Daniel, a black boy wearing glasses who reaches out to shake my hand, and Karen, a short white girl with a brown pixie haircut who hugs me and tells me how excited she is to have another girl on the team.

Then there’s Noah, who is a real, actual alien. I’ve been excited to meet him ever since Kate texted me last night, warning me that they were all coming down this morning.

He looks human. There’s not even pointed ears or brow ridges to show that he isn’t from Earth. It’s kind of a let-down.

“Ok, wait,” I say before Eli can get into our plan for the day, “I know Billy and Tommy and Teddy and Eli and Serrure and America, but wasn’t there someone else talking to me the other day?” I glance around. Maybe I misunderstood? Could the seventh voice have been Noah or Daniel?

Kate and Billy trade glances, like they’re worried about something.

“I’m not making stuff up,” I tell them, “I definitely heard seven voices. I think it might have been the brown hawk with the red on its shoulders?”

Now everyone is looking at Billy. Ok. So there’s definitely something going on there.

“It was Loki,” Billy admits. He sounds like he’d rather not tell me, but I still don’t understand what’s embarrassing or awkward about their seventh teammate.

“Ok. And he didn’t show up today-?” I glance around again, as if it was possible I missed someone.

Billy looks around to make sure we won’t be overheard, but we’re sitting in the middle of the soccer field for a reason- we could see anyone sneaking up on us way before they could hear our words.

“Loki’s- look, I’ll tell you later,” Billy says, shaking his head. “We should focus on the mission.”

Eli and Kate look unhappy, but don’t jump in to tell me more, either. I guess the mysterious Loki will just have to wait.

“Ok, so we’ll go first and scope out the area, picking out people and entrances. Then the human team (you, Noah, Daniel, and Karen) will infiltrate the building. You’ll probably be able to get into the public areas just by saying you want information on the Sharing. If this one is anything like the one we have in town, you’ll need to improvise to get past the lounge area,” Kate says.

“What does the Sharing have to do with the yeerks, again?” I ask. I feel like I’m asking a lot of questions. Am I asking too many questons?

“The Sharing _is_ the yeerks,” Tommy tells me. “It’s how they recruit hosts.”

“Some of them choose to be hosts, but mostly they’re forced to take a yeerk in their head,” Teddy continues.

“So we’ve got to stop them.” That sounds terrible- people looking to have fun or make friends instead becoming slaves to alien parasites. How do you even fight against this sort of thing?

-

The others morph pigeons and take flight, but the non-morphers and I walk in our human (or Kree) forms all the way to the community center.

The loud, blaring siren doesn’t seem out of place at first. We’re downtown, and the police turn on their sirens for speeding tickets here.

It takes me awhile to realize that this isn’t a police siren.

It gets louder and louder as we continue to walk, and I start craning my head looking for the fire truck. Nothing speeds past us. I don’t see anything when I glance down side streets, either.

It’s parked in front of the community center.

What’s left of the community center, anyway.

The other night, Kate stood in front of this building as I learned how to use thought-speech. This is where Abu and Ammi took English classes when I was younger.

Now it’s a burnt-out skeleton of a building.

“This wasn’t us, was it?” Karen asks. How is that even a question? There could have been people in that building!

Daniel shakes his head. “There wasn’t time. It can’t have been us.” That… is not reassuring.

There’s police tape all around. We circle the area trying to find a way in, but the police have it pretty well contained.

Smoke lazily floats above the building, even as firefighters douse the structure in water.

“What happened?” I breathe in horror.

< _The firefighters think it’s arson_ ,>  Serrure reports. I don’t see a pigeon or a magpie anywhere, but there’s a lot of people and vehicles around. It’s not surprising that a bird could be out of sight.

“Who, though?” Karen wonders.

“Could’ve been a former host,” Daniel suggests. “This city doesn’t have its own pool, so some of the freed hosts could live around here.”

“Could we find them?” I ask. “They could help us, right?”

Noah and Daniel trade looks.

“Yeah…” Daniel says, “If we could ever trust that they were really free, and not a yeerk trick.”

“You trusted me,” I point out.

“You can morph,” Noah replies. “If yeerks had access to morph-capable hosts, they’d be doing a lot more damage than they are.”

“Oh. Ok. So that’s why you guys trusted me with your names and faces?”

Karen laughs. “Kamala, you don’t know our names.”

What?

“Your name’s not Karen?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It is now.”

This is getting more confusing by the minute.

“Okay, this isn’t working,” Daniel announces. “I’m going to see if I can trick the police into letting me in. I’ll be back.”

I look at Karen, but she doesn’t move to stop him. She just nods like this is an entirely reasonable thing to do.

“What’s he even looking for?” I ask her. “The place was torched.”

Karen shrugs. “I’m never sure, with Daniel. He’s three steps ahead of everyone else most of the time. Maybe he’s checking for a yeerk pool entrance.”

“Yeerk pool?” I repeat. I feel like I just stumbled into an AP history class halfway through the year. I don’t get what’s going on, I don’t even have the background to understand the explanations, and everyone else already did the homework.

“Where the yeerks go to feed every three days,” Karen explains. Okay. Alien cafeteria. Got it.

“Okay, so the Sharing runs yeerk pools?” I ask as we slowly circle the area.

I see Noah’s blonde hair in the distance.

“Hey-“ I call.

“Hey,” a strange voice answers. “Did someone lose a pair of yeerks?”

A cold hand clamps over my mouth.

-

The man is tall and bald, with a face full of scars, and a burrito shoved halfway down his throat.

“Whgbbt dbb uu ‘nt?” he asks.

“Uh.”

The room behind him is covered in cardboard boxes, stacked in uneven towers around a ratty couch and a TV.

The guy at the door swallows loudly and tries again.

“Do you want something to drink? I’ve got coke, water, and uh,” he counts the options off on his fingers, “I think there’s a jug of orange juice in there but it might be from last year.”

This might seem more thoughtful if Karen and I weren’t zip-tied to chairs in the middle of a messy living room.

“When my friends find us, they’re going to kick your ass,” Karen threatens.

“My family is going to go nuts,” I mumble.

I could get out of the zip-ties fairly easily. The rabbit’s wrists are much smaller than mine. The finch doesn’t even _have_ wrists.

But I’m supposed to be keeping my morphing low-key. And I can’t just leave Karen alone.

“Ah, cheer up!” he chirps, “You’ll be free in no time. We’ll just wait here until the slimy slug crawl out of your ear and that’s that!”

I grimace. “That’s disgusting.”

Karen’s face is blank. “What are you talking about?” she asks.

“Yeerks, silly!” the guy says between bites of food. “The parasitic alien living in your brain.”

“I don’t _have_ an alien in my brain!” I yell. “This is ridiculous! Let me _go_!”

“What do you know about yeerks?” Karen asks calmly.

That was the wrong thing to say. The guy’s mouth broadens into an unsettling grin. We should’ve just kept plausible deniability until the Animorphs come to save us.

“I know all about the yeerk invasion,” he says. “I got one of them up here.”

He gestures to his head.

“You- you have a yeerk in your head?” I ask. This isn’t making any sense to me. I look over at Karen. Her face is still blank. No help there.

“Not exactly,” he waffles. “Maybe I’ve got a human body. Maybe I’ve got a yeerk brain. Maybe ol’ Deadpool just has a bunch of oatmeal stuffed in his head!” He pauses. “Hey, that’s a thought. I wonder what that’d look like under an x-ray.” He pauses and looks thoughtful.

What. The. Heck.

“Are you ok?” I ask carefully.

Deadpool shrugs, nonchalant. “Not remotely. Everything kinda went downhill since the yeerk started starving. But now we’re both on board for saving humankind, so it’s worth it. Probably.”

“Starving?” Karen asks, falsely casual.

“Did you know that yeerks can eat oatmeal?” he asks, apparently changing the subject. He begins to pace.

“They’re slugs. They don’t have mouths,” Karen says, incredulous. Her eyes widen immediately afterward, realizing what she’s admitted.

Deadpool continues on without pause.

“They love the stuff. Instant maple and ginger oatmeal: food of the gods. Aliens. Whatever. Stops them from starving. That part’s dumb. Oatmeal, right? Badly written. This ain’t War of the Worlds. I’m thinking this is a filler episode, maybe a metaphor for drugs- Don’t do drugs, kids!” He turns and looks at us. “I haven’t been to the pool in a month, maybe two,” he says. “I’m immortal.”

This has gotten past creepy and is quickly passing into ‘pants-wetting terror’. I crane my neck as far as I can to look at Karen.

“Your yeerks aren’t, though,” he continues, undaunted. “Give me three days and you girls will be as fresh as daisies!” He laughs.

“We don’t have yeerks,” I repeat desperately.

“Hey, do you guys like Dog Cops? This is going to take awhile, and it’ll probably be _really_ boring without TV.”

“Karen,” I say in warning.

“I’ll get the popcorn!”

“Do it,” she says.

I morph ferret.

“Whoa,” Deadpool says. He wipes his hands on his pants and points a thumb at me. “Hey, are you seeing this?”

Karen doesn’t say anything. My face changes first, shrinking in stages, my eyes getting closer and closer together until they’re barely two centimeters apart.

My body erupts in fur next. Then, finally, my limbs shorten. As soon as my wrists are free I fall to the floor, but by then I’m small enough that it doesn’t hurt much.

“Holy shit! Holy shit!” our captor is yelling. “She’s a were-squirrel! That is the coolest thing ever!”

I scurry past him toward the door. If I can just get it open, I can get the others and come back for Karen-

I’m standing on four paws staring up at the locked front door when a moose smashes it in.

-

I can’t breathe. My leg is killing me, I can’t seem to get my lungs to move, and my tail is-

-my tail-

Oh right. I’m a ferret.

I’m a ferret trapped under a thick piece of a fractured door.

This time, I don’t panic.

 _‘Demorph_ ,’ I tell myself. ‘ _I’m Kamala. I’m human’._

I emerge from the rubble to find a moose (a moose! Here! In some guy’s apartment!), several Big Cats, a bear, a scrawny coyote, and- I swear- a green scaly guy with wings.

“What.”

Deadpool is brandishing a broken piece of wood that I recognize as a piece of the chair I was tied to a few minutes ago. He swings it at a big tan cat every time it gets within striking distance.

The moose is staying close to the door. I don’t think it knows how to handle itself inside.

“Guys, stop! He’s not the enemy!” Karen is trying to yell. It’s really loud in here, between the creaking of wood under hooves, the growls and snarls of the animals, and Deadpool’s battle cries of “For glory!” and “Not today, Bullwinkle!”

“He was trying to help!” Karen yells again. “He’s fighting the yeerks!”

The mountain lion pauses and stops snarling. < _And he’s accomplishing this by kidnapping teenage girls?_ > Eli’s voice asks.

Oh wow, they have really cool morphs.

< _It looks like Kamala wasn’t exactly a damsel in distress_ ,> another voice says. It sounds like it could be… Kate? Kate can morph too?

“You’re destroying the apartment,” I say. I think I’m in shock or something. I just kind of want to burst out laughing, but I know if I do, nothing good with come of it.

The mountain lion growls again. < _You’re sure he isn’t a Controller?_ >

“-Well-“ I start to say.

“Holy shit, is that a Skrull?” Deadpool asks, dropping his makeshift weapon to instead lunge at the big green guy. The Skrull (apparently?) brings up his fists to defend himself.

Instead of attacking, Deadpool runs his hands over the other guy’s arms.

“ _So_ cool,” Deadpool squeals. “You’re a squad of Skrulls, then? Big fan, big fan. Loved the part where you destroyed the population of the local yeerk pool.  Nothing I’ve done has come _close_ to that amount of damage!”

The moose manages to look more uncomfortable. I’m actually so distracted by looking at the moose that Deadpool’s words don’t sink in immediately.

“Wait, you did _what_?” I ask the closes animal- the tiger.

It hangs its head.

< _It’s a long story that we will tell you after we get Karen out of that chair_ ,> Kate, who I’m pretty sure is the bear, says.

“So… what?” Deadpool asks the Skrull. “Are you here for the girl? Does she have info you need? Can I help?”

< _She’s ours_ ,> Eli says.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

< _Let her **go**_ ,> the moose roars. Oh. It’s America. The moose is nothing like her swan, but for some reason it seems fitting.

“Okay, okay,” Deadpool says, holding up his arms to placate the world’s most dangerous petting zoo. “Say, isn’t this that Amber Alert girl? Cassie Whatever?”

Well now I know Karen’s name.

The moose takes a step forward, menacing at seven feet tall.

“Deadpool says he ate oatmeal and became immortal and is trying to save the world!” I try to explain as much as I can, as quickly as possible. Maybe I should have gone for slow-and-steady.

The animals- Animorphs- stare at me.

< _Deadpool_ …?> the cheetah asks.

My arm shoots out to point at the bald man who is still fawning over the Skrull.

< _His name’s Wade Wilson_ ,> Eli reports blandly. < _He’s an Iraq War vet. The neighbors say he’s always been odd, but that he’s gotten a lot worse in the last couple months_. >

< _Since the Kandrona mission_ ,> the coyote- Serrure- realizes.

< _Are we seriously considering that oatmeal drove this guy insane? > _Tommy asks _. <The lady next door thinks it’s PTSD. Maybe she’s right.>_

 _< What about the timing?>_ Billy- the tiger- asks. < _His behavior changed right when the yeerks all died. >_

 _< David told me what it feels like for a yeerk to die while its controlling you,>_ Tommy replies. < _That could mess with anyone’s head._ >

“Okay, Mr. Wilson-“ I pause. “-maybe you should get away from the Skrull.”

He looks at the Skrull’s face. He looks at me.

“Please get off,” the alien says.

He does.

“Deadpool. I’m not Mr. Wilson.”

< _That’s not a yeerk name. Too long, no number. That’s just a random pair of words_. > I knew there was a seventh voice! I’m still not sure which name to match to the speaker. I look around. None of the animals are unaccounted for…

< _It sounds like a screenname. Is this guy on reddit? >_ Tommy wonders.

“Deadpool. Like Gatsby.”

We look at him blankly.

“Oh, come on! That was hilarious! You’d have gotten that if it was a comic book reference,” Mr. Wilson-or-possibly-Deadpool says. He pouts. Honest, he really does. He is a middle-aged man and he puffs out his bottom lip and crosses his arms like a kid in time-out.

“Uh, ok. Deadpool. What’s with the oatmeal?”

There are boxes of it everywhere in the room- big shipping crates full of oatmeal packages. In the commotion, several have spilled, covering the floor in oats and powder.

“Really? Relegated to exposition?” Deadpool demands. “I at least want an action montage before I spill my guts.” He looks thoughtful and his eyes unfocus. Several seconds tick by. “Yeah, like that!” he says after almost a minute of awkward silence.

< _Maybe you guys should go_ ,> Kate worries.

“The oatmeal is like yeerk Kryptonite,” he says. “Red Kryptonite, probably, ‘cause it supercharges them, but it’s also addictive and has some… side effects.”

“Side effects?” I echo when it becomes clear he isn’t about to continue.

“Yeah,” he says casually. “I think he melted.”

“Who?” Karen (Cassie?) asks, hesitant.

“The yeerk,” Deadpool replies.

< _Holy shit_ ,> Billy says. He sounds horrified.

< _It was in your head_ ,> Eli clarifies. < _How could it melt_? >

Deadpool shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t write this shit. First he got all weird, then he stopped needing Kandrona, and then couldn’t come out at all.”

I look at Karen/Cassie, wondering if this makes more sense to her than it does to me. She’s clenching her fists tight, and her mouth is a hard line.

“And now we’re kinda,” Deadpool makes a wobbly hand gesture, “fused. Or something.”

“That’s horrible,” I blurt out.

“Yeah, probably,” Deadpool agrees. “You want some, right? That’s why you looked me up. You figured out that ol’ Deadpool wasn’t coming into the yeerk pool anymore, and came to see what was up?”

Eli is still silent.

“No, no!” I object, “We’re not yeerks!”

“No,” Deadpool agrees. “But you’re awfully buddy-buddy with the Skrulls, aren’t you?” He walks slowly over to Cassie’s chair. Suddenly, he’s holding a knife- a big, broad kitchen blade.

<No!> Kate roars.

No one has time to move.

Deadpool’s arm darts out, and swiftly, skillfully,

he breaks the zip ties holding her to the chair.

This is too much. The day has been a series of pointless plot-twists, and I’ve lost my ability to be surprised.

As one, we turn to leave Deadpool’s apartment.

“Hey!” he calls after us. “I’m totally up for helping save the world!”

Cassie and I walk between America and Kate, letting their furry bodies hide us from view. Noah and Daniel join us just outside the building.

“How’d it go?” Daniel asks.

As we get further and further away, we hear Deadpool’s distant voice yelling, “Call me!”

-

“So how much of what he said was true?” I ask after the rest of the team is back to their human selves.

“Who knows!” Serrure says, throwing up his arms. “Oatmeal, immortality, Amazing Melting Yeerks?”

“ _No_ ,” I clarify, “I mean about the Kander-whatever. The yeerk pool. The Skrulls. What was he talking about?”

The others are silent.

“Oh,” Serrure says.

They all look at someone else. Kar- Cassie and Daniel look at eachother. America just looks at me. Serrure looks at Tommy. Tommy looks at Kate. Kate glances between me and Eli. Eli looks at Billy. Billy looks at the ground.

“What?” I ask again.

“We’ve been fighting this war for a year,” Kate says. Her voice is flat, and everyone else is silent. I didn’t realize just how much chatter and asides there are among the Animorphs until it all stopped. “We were losing. The yeerks were gaining ground and the best we could do was keep them distracted. A couple months ago, we had an opportunity to hit them where it hurt- get a decisive victory for Earth.”

“So you did it,” I guess.

“Yeah,” Kate replies. “And people died. A couple hundred yeerks, maybe even a couple thousand. Humans, too. They killed hosts to keep them quiet.”

I swallow. The silence after Kate’s words threatens to engulf me.

“You killed people,” I repeat. “On purpose.”

“We meant to kill the yeerks. The humans were collateral,” Eli says bitterly.

“But they were _people_?” I demand.

“Yes,” he answers. “Evil people, probably. Alien people. Invaders, colonizers. But people.”

I stare at him. He doesn’t look happy, none of them look happy, but how can they be so _calm_? Thousands of people. I can’t even _imagine_ -

I back away.

“Kamala-“ Billy says, reaching toward me.

“Don’t! Don’t- I can’t do this.  I don’t want to learn from you.”

They’re quiet. Then-

“Okay.” Cassie gives me a watery smile. “I understand.”

I exhale. For a moment I thought they’d try to stop me.

I thought they were heroes. I thought I’d be a hero, too.                                                               

Now I’m not sure what to think.

Together, we start the long walk back.

-

“Kamala,” Eli says once we’ve reached the park again. The meeting spot we decided on just last night, and so long ago. “So how did you get the morphing power?”

“Uh,” I give up. “I kind of stole this blue cube thing that kind-of talks, and she made me into a superhero.”

The others take a moment to process that. I could have been a bit clearer, I guess. I’m just tired.

“You have the Blue Box?” Kate demands.

“It’s a she?” Tommy wonders.

“Yeah, I keep it under my bed. I’m really not sure, I haven’t asked, but she kinda seems like a she, you know?”

“She talked to you?” America asks.

I wonder if that’s normal. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing? But no, I have morphing powers. It had to be real. “Yeah. She asked me what I wanted.”

“I’m not an expert in Skrull technology,” Noah, the alien, says, “But it could be an AI designed to make the user interface more accessible.”

“So you’re saying it’s Alien Siri.” Daniel sounds thoughtful. I try to imagine an iPhone talking inside my head. Freaky.

“Kamala…” Eli begins. I sigh. I can see where this is going.

“You want to take it.”

“Yes,” he answers. He doesn’t sound sorry at all, and I’m not sure I expect him to.

“What are you going to do with it?” They might be more experienced than me, but that doesn’t mean I have to do what they say. Especially not after- well.

“We’re going to keep it safe,” Kate answers. “We have places the yeerks don’t know about. Safer hiding spaces than under your bed.”

Maybe I should say no. Maybe if I hadn’t seen a Controller up close, I would have.

Instead, I lead them to my house and hand over the Cosmic Cube.

“You don’t morph,” Eli tells me. “If you’re giving up this war, you’re giving up morphing. It’s too dangerous.”

“What!” I demand.

“If the yeerks find you, they’ll know our names, what we look like. Do you understand that you are a liability and we’re letting you go?”

“You aren’t my team,” I tell them. I’m a super hero. The Cosmic Cube made me one, and a bunch of bullies aren’t going to scare me into silence. “You didn’t give me this power, and you don’t have any say in how I use it.”

“You have to understand the danger,” Kate says.

“I do. I’m going to be more careful now,” I tell them. “Okay? I’m going to keep it a secret and not talk about yeerks and not morph where anyone can see. But I’m not giving it up. I help people.”

The twins are silent, but they look uncomfortable. I think they’ll support my decision if push comes to shove.

“I can’t believe you’re just going to ignore the war,” Daniel says.

I’m not going to ‘just’ do anything. I feel sick with guilt and fear and horror. This isn’t a simple decision, but it’s mine.

“I’m only sixteen,” I tell them. “I can’t fight a war.” And I can’t fight like they do. I won’t.

“So are we,” Cassie reminds me.

I shrug. I’m not happy with them fighting either, but I can’t tell them what to do. I can’t stop them without hurting them.

And I won’t hurt people.

There’s nothing else to say.

 


End file.
